


Elevated

by Maisie_top_trash



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: AU, Angst, Anxiety, Fatherhood, Guilt, Internalised Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Trapped In Elevator, elevator fic, josh is a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22835560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maisie_top_trash/pseuds/Maisie_top_trash
Summary: “Oh shit, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me, today?? Today of all days? Fuck me, Jesus, just my fucking luck,”“Is it broken? Are we stuck?”“Yes we’re fucking stuck.” The other guy in the elevator sighed heavily, then shoved his clubbed thumb into the yellow bell icon that every elevator had but Josh had never used before.Despite first appearances, the pair trapped in the same elevator have more in common than they think. With nobody coming to their rescue any time soon, Tyler and Josh realise they have to rescue each other.Posting every other day
Relationships: Tyler Joseph/Josh Dun
Comments: 72
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflopfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflopfish/gifts).



> Had a bit of fun writing this trapped-in-an-elevator AU, I usually try to have original ideas but this trope was entertaining to me, hopefully it is to you too! Only in the world of fanfic...
> 
> TW:  
> Homophobia (internalised and occasional language)  
> Parental bonding issues  
> Let me know if you feel I’ve missed anything xx

“Oh shit, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me, today?? Today of all days? Fuck me, Jesus, just my fucking luck,”  
“Is it broken? Are we stuck?”  
“Yes we’re fucking stuck.” The other guy in the elevator sighed heavily, then shoved his clubbed thumb into the yellow bell icon that every elevator had but Josh had never used before. 

He didn’t know what he was expecting to happen, maybe some kind of an alarm would go off, or they’d be connected to some central call centre to talk to somebody who could help, but he definitely wasn’t expecting absolutely nothing to happen. 

“For fuck’s sake! Stupid thing, hello??” The increasingly angry man hammered the button half a dozen times, then started pressing all the other buttons, but none of them responded at all. “Jesus fucking Christ,”  
“Is the power out?”  
“The power? No, the light is still on dude,” he gave Josh a dirty look.   
“I dunno, I thought maybe since the buttons aren’t lighting up, I, I mean maybe the light has a different power source or something?”  
“Or maybe the fucking maintenance team here just take all my fucking rent and pocket it, and spend absolutely fuck all on actually maintaining this fucking dump and that’s why shit keeps fucking breaking all the fucking time!”

“You pay rent here? Do you live here?”  
“Yeah, why the fuck else would I be here, hmm?”  
“I, I can’t afford to live here, I can’t afford to live within 10 blocks of here. I’m just the delivery guy,” Josh gestured to the insulated bag he had placed on the floor when he’d first entered the lift, and with a quick glance, the man sighed. 

“You got anything in there?”  
“Three pizzas for apartment 5 on 24th,”  
“Gimme the hottest one,”  
“Hmm? Sorry, I, I don’t take orders, you have to call up the store, I just distribute,”  
“Yes I do understand the concept of delivery boys, thanks for the refresher, but give me the warmest pizza you have,”  
“I can’t, it’s, it’s already been purchased,”  
“You’re really not getting this, are you? We’re trapped in an elevator, nobody knows we’re here, it’s 7pm on a Friday so no fucking staff are here to rescue us. We’re in for a long fucking night,”  
“What?? No, I, I, I only just started my shift, I’ve got a dozen more deliveries I need to make, I can’t wait here all night, I’ll lose my job,”  
“Well gimme a damn pizza and that at least makes one successful delivery, right?” The man loosened his silk tie and undid his top button. 

“I’m sorry but I can’t, they need to go to their intended recipient, I can’t just give them away,”  
“Jesus, you’re a barrel of laughs aren’t you? Tell me, what’s the damage gonna be?” He pulled a money clip out of his suit pocket but Josh didn’t know what to say. “Take 50, that’s enough to refund 24th and buy me a large, no?”  
“I can’t take your money sir,”  
“I’m sure as shit not gonna spend the night starving whilst there’s 3 pizzas next to me, so either I’m gonna take one for free, or I’m gonna take one for 50 bucks - you tell me, which sounds better?”  
“The, the money,”  
“The money, good,” The man extended the note to him and Josh hesitantly took it off him, then unzipped his bag, knowing his boss was going to yell at him for hours because of it, and handed him the large pepperoni meant for the 24th floor. 

“$3,000 suit going on a fucking elevator floor covered in hobo piss,” the dude muttered as he took off his jacket and dropped it down for a little cushioning, then slid down to sit on it, pizza box on his lap. 

Josh remained standing for a little while before suddenly feeling really weird about it and joining the stranger on the floor of the small box. 

“I’m Tyler by the way,”  
“Josh,”  
“Welcome to Columbus’ most luxurious apartment building, Josh.” He was clearly trying to be ironic and take the piss out of the reputation that the building had as he pulled out the first slice of pizza. Even though it was supposed to be sarcastic, Josh couldn’t help but feel annoyed at how ungrateful the asshole was - maybe the elevator was stuck, but the elevator was almost as big as Josh’s whole apartment, and he lived on the 9th floor of a building that didn’t have an elevator at all. 

“Maybe I should call the police or the fire department or something,” Josh delved into his pocket.   
“No point, fuck all cell reception in here.”  
“Oh, uh, should we shout for help?”  
“Whole lift shaft is soundproofed to stop the nearest apartments hearing the whirring,”  
“So, so what do we do??”  
“We wait,”  
“Until?”  
“Until someone rescues us.”  
“How long will that be?”  
“Jesus Josh, I don’t fucking know, I‘m a corporate finance senior, not a damn clairvoyant,”

Of all the people he could have been trapped in an elevator with, of course it had to be the biggest dickhead he’d ever met. 

“I’m gonna lose my job,”  
“You reeaaally trying to get more money out of me?? Seriously? Dude this pizza tastes like ass and I gave you at least 3 times how much it costs,”  
“I’m, I’m, I’m not asking for money, I just can’t wait here all night, I, I’m, I need this job,”  
“Nobody’s gonna fire you over one screwed shift,”  
“Oh trust me, they will,” Josh ran his hands through his hair with a deep sigh. “Fuuuck,”  
“So what? You can just get another job,”  
“Get another job?? What, just like that? Like it’s easy or something?”  
“You’re a minimum wage errand boy, you’re seriously telling me there’s no other vacancies in the city for that role?”  
“No need to be a dick,”  
“Just saying it ain’t the end of the world, so don’t go using up all my oxygen having a fit over it.”

Josh gulped. 

“Are, are we gonna run out of oxygen?”

The walls suddenly felt very close. 

“What? No... I was joking, you can’t seriously think this is airtight, there’s a fucking fan right above your head,” Tyler looked at him like he was stupid, maybe he was, but it did nothing to help the tightness in his chest. 

“If, if this is broken, what are the chances it’s gonna snap and we’ll freefall to the bottom of the shaft?”  
“The problem is that we’re not moving at all, not that we’re moving too fast,”  
“What do we do if it starts falling?”  
“Doesn’t matter, we’ll be dead by the time we hit the ground.”  
“Definitely?”  
“We’re probably 20 floors up, so what’s that, 200ft? Nobody’s gonna survive a 200ft drop.” 

He was so casual about it, so unfazed as he threw a crust back into the box and picked up another slice of pizza as Josh’s whole body seized up with dread. 

“HELP! HELP!”  
“Jesus fuck! Won’t you shut up already? Didn’t I already tell you nobody will hear nothing?”  
“No no no, no, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening! HELP!”  
“Hello?? Dipshit? Nobody can hear you,”  
“PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” He scrambled up onto his feet and cupped his mouth with both hands for even more volume. “HELP!”  
“Nobody ‘cept me of course, Christ, got quite the set of lungs on you there,”  
“PLEEAASE!”  
“Alright enough already!” Tyler snapped at him. “You’re doing my nut in. Quit it, alright?!”

“I can’t be here, I can’t be here, I can’t be here, I can’t-“   
“Josh, you pacing back and forth in a 6ft wide elevator is perhaps the funniest things I’ve ever seen - go any quicker and you’ll just be spinning on the spot.”  
“No no no no no you don’t understand, no, no I can’t do this, I can’t be here, I can’t do this, I can’t do this,”

Tyler sighed. 

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,”  
“Josh.”  
“I can’t fucking breathe, oh shit, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”  
“Josh, calm down, you absolutely can breathe, that’s the big gaspy thing you keep doing, that’s breathing and you can do it, just calm down,” 

Josh just paced faster and faster, which meant he kept reaching the walls sooner and sooner, and they were getting closer and closer, and-

“Josh, look at me, look at me. You’re fine. You’re safe, you’re okay, you’re fine. You are going to be fine. Take a deep breath, have a drink if you’ve got one in that bag of yours, and calm down. This isn’t going to be fun, the next couple hours as we wait for help, but that doesn’t mean it has to be scary, alright? You’re not on your own, I’m with you, I’ll talk to you if that’s gonna help, I’ll leave you to your half of the space if that’s what you need, but either way you’re going to be fine, you hear me?” Tyler had stood up and stepped in his way, putting his hands out and holding Josh’s arms steady. 

“What if they don’t find us?” Josh whispered.   
“I’m supposed to be meeting my partner for dinner at 8.30, if I’m not there then he’ll come looking. My guess is we’ll be outta here by 9.30, 10 at the latest,”  
“What if he doesn’t look?”  
“He will, he’s good like that, but hypothetically worst case scenario I suppose we might have to stick it out till morning. Trust me though, none of the lazy bastards here use the stairs, not even the first floor, so people will notice if one of the elevators doesn’t come and they’ll get maintenance on it asap. We’ll be out in no time, we’ve just got to stay calm until then, alright?”  
“A-alright,” he sniffed pathetically. 

“Come on, come have some of this 50 dollar pizza of mine - you didn’t spit on this did you?” Tyler sat down again with his first warm smile of the night.   
“Spit? No, I, I think that’s just a rumour, I don’t know anybody who actually does that,” Josh mumbled, sitting down clumsily, still shaking.   
  
“This one time I ordered Five Guys to be delivered and I swear down, the delivery boy ate half my fucking fries before he handed ‘em over,”   
“I, I, I, I’d never, but, uh, but he must have had a good reason, um, he was probably starving, like legitimately malnourished and starving - why else would he risk it? We get really good discounts, or, or at least I get really good discounts from my place, maybe he couldn’t afford his own,”  
“I don’t think he was starving, I think he was an asshole,” Tyler lost the softer side to him, but chuckled a little anyway. 

“Here, have a piece,” he ripped one off and handed it to Josh, and even though he felt physically sick, he accepted it.   
“Thanks,”  
“What are the other two in your sack?”  
“Um,” Josh reached into his bag and pulled out the clunky screen that gave him SatNav and all the order details. “One vegi supreme, one Hawaiian,”  
“Pineapple on a pizza? Gross,”  
“You c-can’t talk, you don’t even eat the crusts, they’re the best bits,”

Tyler looked at Josh and instantly he regretted calling out the stranger, he could tell Tyler had a temper on him and didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, especially with the panic still so recent in his throat. 

“Yikes, I cannot believe of all the people, I’m trapped in an elevator with a pro-pineapple-pizza-punk. Some things just aren’t forgivable.” Thankfully the guy in the suit relaxed.   
“I never said I’m for it, I, I honestly don’t care, I could take it or leave it, I’m just saying you’re missing out by giving up on your crusts. Crusts dunked in ranch are the best thing since sliced bread,”  
“Knock yourself out,” Tyler chucked 3 crusts perfectly at him so he could catch them easily, then slid the included pot of ranch across the floor to him.   
“Thanks,”

“You just do pizzas then?”  
“No, um, during the day I’m a housekeeper over at Motel 6, then in the evenings I only do Pablo’s, but he does, uh, wings and stuff as well as pizza,”   
“How many hours is that? I never understand how it logistically works when people work 2 jobs at once,”  
“S’not too bad, housekeeping doesn’t start till 10 when people start checking out and I’m usually done by 4 then Pablo’s is 6 till 1,”  
“13 hours a day? Don't you get tired?”  
“The cleaning is tiring, making beds and scrubbing floors and everything, but the deliveries are just driving around, it’s not too bad,”  
  
With that being said, Josh felt shattered, his body heavy but brain still buzzing away. 

“You doing okay?”  
“Yeh, I’m, I’m fine, sorry about, um, about the yelling and everything,”  
“Don’t worry about it,” Tyler waved his hand through the air casually. “In college I used to get panic attacks. I know me being a douche probably wasn’t the most helpful thing in the world, I’m just cautious with strangers and that comes across as cold sometimes. I’m working on it, sorry.” 

Josh hasn’t expected him to open up and didn’t know what to say. 

“It’s, it’s okay, you gave me your crusts so I think technically you’re allowed to cuss at me as much as you like,”  
“Gah, if only I could buy everyone in my life off with pizza crusts,” Tyler sniggered a little then tossed Josh another one, which he dunked straight in the ranch. 

“How did you get them to stop?”  
“The panic attacks?”  
“Yeah,” Josh nodded.   
“Got a job straight outta college and they gave me a signing on bonus which meant I could finally afford some therapy. Now that’s some good shit, highly recommend.”

“I did therapy once, in high school. My dad took me to see this lady called Rose every single Tuesday of my junior year,”  
“Help?”  
“Not at all,” Josh didn’t know why he felt compelled to blurt that out to the stranger, although he also didn’t regret it either. “I’m 31, so that was almost half my lifetime ago, which means it’s probably worth trying again now, but, uh, but who has the time?”   
“You should make the time. It’s worth it, I remember how shit panic attacks are and it’s worth it for the chance to live without them.”   
“I guess,” he sniffed. 

“I’m turning 31 in a couple of weeks, any advice for me from an older soul?”  
“You want advice from me? Aren’t you some fancy executive?”  
“I am,”  
“I dunno man, kinda sounds like you’ve got your life together pretty well, nice job, nice apartment, nice partner, I’m not sure what more I can really offer you.”  
“Partner? Not me, I’m about as single as you can get.”  
“You are? I just, earlier you said you were getting dinner with your partner and that he was good to you so I assumed-“  
“Are you calling me gay?”  
“Oh,” the sound fell from Josh’s mouth when he realised his mistake. “Sorry, I didn’t mean, um, sorry,”

“He’s my business partner, we have a startup together, not whatever the hell you’re thinking!”  
“Sorry, sorry,“  
“I’m not a fag.”  
“No, I didn’t mean to offend you, it’s fine, I mean I am, gay that is, but it’s fine if you’re not, I, my mistake, I’m sorry.”

Tyler sighed heavily whilst Josh held his breath. 

“You’re gay?”  
“Yeh,” Josh nodded, bracing himself for whatever kind of harsh comment was incoming.   
“You’re not just saying that?”  
“Why would I lie?”  
“To catch me out, make me say something you’ll use against me,”  
“Tyler, I, I don’t know what nerve I’ve pressed but I sincerely didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry that I have. If you’re worried about me being homophobic then that’s honestly not a problem, I’m gay and love’s love and that’s the end of that. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Josh tried to give the stranger some space for a moment but it was hard when they were trapped in a tiny elevator together, so the best he could do was look away until Tyler started speaking again. 

“I am, um, I am.. gay,” Tyler whispered the last word. “Just not publicly, like, like at the office I have a fake girlfriend I bring up sometimes so people don’t ask too many questions, and I don’t, uh, I don’t tell people, not even my family, so don’t tell anyone please.”  
“Secret’s safe with me, but why? Columbus has always felt like a safe place to me as a gay man,”  
“People treat you different when they know.” He shrugged a little sadly, tugging at Josh’s heart strings. 

“Was it easy for you then? Coming out?” Tyler asked.   
“Not exactly. I, uh, I didn’t really date in high school at all, just never felt attracted to anybody regardless of gender or whatever, then once I graduated and matured a bit, I started dating a little, just to see what it was like, so I got my friends to set me up with girls they knew and it was, eh, I dunno, it wasn’t awful or anything but I just never clicked with any of them. I thought maybe it was a personality thing rather than a gender thing so I kept dating girls, then when I was 24 I met this one girl, Debby, and I actually really liked her. At the time I thought it was love and we dated for maybe 3 or 4 months, then she tells me she’s pregnant.”  
“Yours?”  
“Yeh, fair to say my experimenting didn’t have adequate safety precautions in place and sure enough she gets pregnant.”

Tyler seemed to be listening as he rambled and overshared. 

“She tells me, freaking out, and I just reassure her that I’d support her no matter what she opted to do and I’d be there for her either way, and so she decides to keep it and I was secretly so excited. I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to have a little baby in my arms, I, I was so excited. When we reached like 14 weeks pregnant we could finally tell our parents and I was so pumped to tell mine, and of course the first thing my dad said casually is that oh of course you’ll have to marry her then, and in that moment I just had this horrible dropping sensation in my belly, I’ll never forget it, it was horrible,”  
“What was it?”  
“I think it was a combination of dread and a simultaneous epiphany, because that was the first moment I considered I might actually be gay. The thought had never crossed my mind before but at the suggestion of marrying a woman and having a family together, something inside me just cried out no.”

It was years ago but Josh couldn’t help remembering the exact moment in horrific detail. 

“I swallowed it down and tried to forget about it, but the thought kept niggling away at me, it stopped me sleeping, stopped me concentrating, it was taking over my life and after a couple of weeks of constantly questioning whether there was any basis to it, I decided the only way to get it to stop was to test it. I told Debby I was spending the night with my brother when in actuality I went to my first gay nightclub and got as much booze down me as it took to pluck up the courage to grab the nearest guy to me and drag him to the bathroom, and Jesus, the slutty meaningless sex in a club bathroom with a stranger was a million times better than anything I’d ever felt with the woman carrying my child, and from that moment on I knew I was gay.”

“Of course I didn’t have a clue how to tell Debby what had happened, so I kept it to myself. She was a couple months pregnant and throwing up all the time and just generally not having a good time with it, and the last thing she needed was me to rock the boat. Again I tried to just ignore what I’d learnt about myself but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and before long I was back again at the club. I started sneaking out whenever Debby was asleep to go meet random guys for a hook up, and for a while she didn’t suspect anything, but sure enough she started picking up on how tired I was and that I was avoiding her, and one night she pretended to be asleep but then followed me out. I was being real classy, fucking some random guy off Grindr in a motel, then when I went to leave, she was stood right there. I tried to talk to her but she didn’t want to hear any of it, and bam, just like that, she left Columbus.”

“Do you know where she went? Whether she kept the kid?”  
“Chicago and yes she did, I’m a proud papa of a gorgeous 6 year old called Charlotte.”  
“Charlotte, sweet name,”  
“Sweet name for a sweet little girl.” Josh couldn’t help smiling. 

“Have you met her?”  
“Yeh yeh, um, we had no contact, Debby and I, for the rest of the pregnancy until Charlotte was a couple of days old. She finally returned my millions of calls and had me go up to Chicago to sign a couple forms to register myself as her father, you know, so I can have all the legal rights to things like consenting to medical treatment if something awful were to happen,”  
“And so you have to pay child support.” Tyler pointed out.   
“True, yeh, very true, but money didn’t even cross my mind - she was letting me be a part of Charlotte’s life and that’s what matters,”

“So you see her a lot?”  
“Not as much as I’d like to, I get to go visit her once a month.”  
“Seems kinda harsh, you don’t even get a full weekend?”  
“Nope. I dunno, it’s complicated, I, um, I humiliated Debby, you know? Like she was thinking we were gonna get married and have a big family and grow old together, and I cheated on her with a bunch of guys and then told her I was gay, so, um, so we’re not exactly the best of friends.”  
“6 years though, at what point does she just get over it?” Tyler frowned a little.   
“I think that too sometimes, but we’re getting better, like we’re civil and everything, and she’s even considering letting Charlotte spend 4th of July with me and my parents next year, so I don’t wanna rock the boat and call her out for anything when she didn’t really do anything wrong.”  
“Mm, shitty that her way of getting back to you is by not letting you see your kid though, that’s, that’s kinda out of line, don’t you think?”

“She’s got this new boyfriend, Liam, and he’s been around since Charlotte was 2, and he’s a big fueller of the anti-Josh campaign, always feeding Debby reasons to hate me. I reckon if he wasn’t around I’d get to see her a bit more regularly, but at the same time he takes good care of them both so I can’t be too mad at him.”  
“You can be mad at him.” Tyler encouraged it and Josh couldn’t resist laughing.   
“Alright alright, I’m a little bit mad.” 

“Since you are on the birth certificate, could you take Debby to court? Try and get joint custody?”  
“Theoretically I could, and I have considered it, but I don’t think it would be in Charlotte’s best interest in the long run, and that’s the important thing. She’s got her whole life up in Chicago, with school and her little friends and all her stuff and everything, and having to make the 300 mile trip each way just to spend time in my teeny tiny shitty apartment where I don’t have room for any of her toys or anything, I dunno, it doesn’t seem fair to put that on her just so I could say I have her for a weekend.”

“Does she enjoy it, when you go up for your visit?”  
“Oh yeah, she loves it and so do I. I have to get up at 3.30am to start driving-“  
“And you have a delivery shift the night before?”  
“Yessir, so I run on about 2 hours sleep and a crap load of caffeine, and I arrive at Debby’s house just in time to pick Charlotte up for her morning dance class, and she sits in the front seat next to me in her car seat which she gets so excited about because with Deb and Liam she has to go in the back, and then she starts telling me all about her week as I drive her over to her dance studio. I help her put on her little dance slippers and then I go sit up in the observation room and watch her do the baby ballet classes with her little friends and she always waves at me to make sure I’m watching, and after that we go across the street to Denny’s and both get a stack of pancakes and she always always always, no matter how many napkins I cover her in or anything I try, she always ends up with syrup all over her,”

Josh was fully aware he was overdoing it on the detail, but he didn’t care. 

“So after a quick change into the spares that I make sure her mom packs, we take about 30 minutes to walk the 250 yards to the park because she likes hopscotching on the pavement slabs. When she was smaller we just used to feed the ducks by the lake but now she likes going over to the playground and she gets me to go up all the climbing frames with her and we race up those mini rock climbing walls and down the slides, and she loves it when we go on the seesaw together because I make her jump a bit by bouncing on my end, gah, her giggle man, I’d do anything to make her giggle.”

“You sound like a good dad.”  
“I try to be, I try,” Josh shrugged with a smile. “I know I don’t have to do any of the hard stuff though, it’s Debby who should be credited with what an amazing little girl she is,”   
“You’re doing everything you can for her, given the circumstances,”  
“I suppose. She’s a great little dancer, for her 6th birthday a couple weeks back I bought her a freestanding barre for her bedroom and Debby sends me pictures of her practicing at it all the time. I’m, um, I send as much child support as I can but I’ve also got an account set up for her that I pay into whenever I can which I’m hoping will one day put her through a proper dance school or help towards college or something. When I’m not with her, I’m working my ass off for her; she’s my whole world.”

“Come on, I know you’re itching to do it, I can sense it - show me a pic of her,” Tyler rolled his eyes with a knowing look on his face and Josh leapt at the opportunity, whipping out his phone and opening his photos. 

There were too many to choose from, so he just went for the most recent in his gallery and shuffled to sit right next to Tyler, only a few centimetres apart, handing him his phone. 

“Bless, she’s actually quite cute, not just in an obligatory ‘your baby looks like a potato but I have to say it’s cute’ kind of way,”  
“Isn’t she just?”  
“Wasn’t expecting curly hair,”  
“Well mine’s curly if I let it grow out so I’m taking credit for that,” Josh flicked through a couple and appreciated the time Tyler took to look at each, but knew it was time to stop after 5. 

“Do you not ever question whether it was worth it?”  
“What do you mean?” Josh frowned, putting his phone back away, his lockscreen a selfie of him and Charlotte in the park from a year ago.   
“Coming out, I mean, if you hadn’t then you could still be with Debby and Charlotte all the time.”  
“Mm, I get what you’re saying, but no I don’t regret being authentic, absolutely not. Those first couple of months with Debby were nice, don’t get me wrong, but I would never love her like she loved me and that would have inevitably caused a lot of issues, and that’s not fair on her or on Charlotte. If I kept a whole side of myself suppressed then I have no doubt that it would turn to resentment and whether it was 6 months down the line of 6 years, any kind of relationship with Debby would have fallen apart and I’d have grown bitter and, regardless of Debby, it’s not a healthy home environment for a child to have their parents hating each other and forcing themselves to stay together for them. I meant what I said earlier, it’s better that Charlotte has Liam so she’s got two happy parents to care for her all the time, then an extra dad on the first Saturday of every month.”

“First Saturday of every month? That’s..”  
“That’s tomorrow.”

Tyler looked across at him, concern written into the lines on his forehead. 

“We’ll get you out of here and over to Chicago in time for her dance class, I promise.”  
“Let’s hope so,” Josh sighed, not wanting to get too wrapped up in the potential consequences of letting down his little girl because he knew it would only make him panic again. 

“See, even though it ultimately had pretty dire consequences for you, you were brave enough to come out. I don’t even really have anything at stake and I’m still too scared to do it.”  
“Who knows about your sexuality?”   
“Nobody. Well, one guy in college that I kissed then threw out of my apartment and never saw again, but other than him and now you, absolutely nobody.” Tyler started picking at his short stubby nails.   
“Thank you for trusting me, I can only begin to appreciate how difficult that must have been.” Josh didn’t want to underestimate what it could have taken out of his fellow captee to make the decision to share. 

“I, I don’t even know why I’m so scared. My family are slightly on the spiritual side of things but absolutely not homophobic, like we’ve watched every single episode of Queer Eye together as a family and nobody even flinched no matter how camp Jonathan got, but there’s still something holding me back and it’s fucking shit.”  
“It’s voluntarily making yourself vulnerable, it’s putting yourself out on a ledge and asking to be accepted whilst knowing there’s no way back, and that goes against all our primal survival instincts.”  
“See usually the pizza guy just hands it over and tells me to have a nice night, you’re the first to completely psychoanalyse my deepest secret.” Tyler’s way of coping with the intensity of the discussion was to make a joke, and Josh obliged and laughed with him.   
“What can I say? Pablo’s offers the complete service.”

“Sometimes I wish I’d just dug deep and got it over and done with when I first figured it out.”  
“How old were you?”  
“13 maybe? Young, but, I dunno, at least that way my parents would have known me, the whole me, for my whole life. Now it’s going to be so much more uncomfortable if I do ever tell them because I’ve kept it a secret from them for so long.”  
“I don’t know the intricacies, obviously, but if they’re as accepting as you say, I’m sure they’d overlook a small detail like that and focus on what’s important, which is embracing you and your sexuality.”

“You know, um, you know, maybe you don’t, but you know when you say a small white lie that you don’t even really think twice about, but then somebody brings it up later and you have to lie again to cover for yourself, and then again, and before you know it you’re trapped in the centre of a huge tangled web of lies with no end in sight? That’s basically what my life has become.”  
“With the fake girlfriend?”  
“Fake everything. There’s not one person in my life that I’m completely honest with, not one. I lie about having a girlfriend, I lie about what I’m up to, what I think about things, how I’m feeling, what I want - it’s got to the extent where I have to put on this whole other persona whenever I leave my apartment and then when I get home, I’m so incredibly lonely because the people who are in my life aren’t friends with the real me, they’re friends with the Tyler who loves wearing expensive suits and can’t wait to moan about whatever reality show his girlfriend made him watch over the weekend and is looking forward to his next romantic trip to Nashville because that’s where his girlfriend grew up and just can’t stop inviting people to dinner in the most expensive restaurant in town to further inflate his ego, I mean Jesus, you know me better than my closest friends or my own fucking mom, and we’ve been stuck in an elevator together for less than half an hour. What kind of fucking psychopath does that make me?”

“You’re trying to protect yourself from getting hurt, that can take irrational forms sometimes.”

“It’s beyond the gay thing though, it’s, it’s everything about me. I lie about everything, even the dumbest shit that nobody even cares about, I’ll say I’ve seen movies that I actually haven’t and that I don’t like food which I actually do, stupid fucking details that don’t matter, I just can’t stop!”

Josh didn’t know how to reassure Tyler as he ranted, but figured it was good for him to open up and get it all off his chest for a change. 

“I’m a fraud. Everything about me is bullshit and nobody knows the real me and there’s absolutely no way I can turn back now.”   
“You’re being honest with me, surely that’s a sign that you can be honest?”  
“Only because I’ll never see you again.” Tyler sighed. “I, I even lied to my fucking therapist.”  
“They didn’t know you were gay?”  
“No, I used a false name and tried to frame all my negative thoughts into a false scenario so that she wouldn’t know what was really going on, and it all became so detached and fake that it didn’t even help.” He sighed again. “And I lied to you earlier. The panic attacks didn’t stop, I still have them.”  
“I’m really sorry Tyler,”

“I’m just really really unhappy all the time.” The guy in the suit admitted, avoiding eye contact. “I’ve always been so desperate not to come across as queer that I’ve done everything to avoid anything even remotely associated with the stereotypes. In middle school my mom put me in singing lessons and I really loved it, but then my teacher recommended I audition for the school musical and I got so petrified that it would out me that I quit that day and haven’t let myself sing since. In high school my favourite class was art but once I realised the only other kids taking it were girls and the gay kid, I dropped out. Everything I’ve ever been interested in, I threw it away because I was so fucking scared of seeming gay, even though I am gay, and it means I’ve rejected anything that could have brought even a hint of enjoyment into my life. I mean fucking hell, I work in finance and I wanna shoot my brains out every single day.”  
“What would you rather be doing?”  
“Music, design, writing maybe, I don’t know, something creative, but in my head creativity is linked with theatrics which just screams camp, and the last thing I want is to draw attention to my sexuality.”

“What could be the worst thing that might happen if people found out you’re gay?” Josh asked gently.   
“My whole life would crumble. Even if my friends and family aren’t homophobic, which is a big if, they’re still going to realise I’m a pathological liar and never trust me again, and I’ll lose them all.”   
“I don’t mean any offence by this, but if you’re truly this unhappy all the time, would a total clean slate which gives you the opportunity to be authentic really be the worst thing?”  
“I can’t lose my family Josh.”  
“Family is different, I’ll come back to family, but your friends and colleagues and everyone else, you already said that they’re friends with this fake persona you put on so you don’t feel that close to them, so maybe it wouldn’t be all that difficult for you to walk away from them and find a whole new group who accept you for who you genuinely are.”

Tyler was getting upset and Josh was tempted to stop, but knew it could potentially help him to have an alternative spelt out. 

“Leave your job, leave your friends, maybe even leave Columbus, and go start fresh as a creative and you’ll find yourself surrounded by likeminded people, and before you know it you’ll feel seen like never before.”  
“I can’t,”  
“What’s stopping you?”  
“I, I have responsibilities, you know, contracts and leases and a whole load already invested in my startup, and I can’t just walk away.”  
“It would be hard to walk away, but nothing is impossible and if you really want something then it can always be figured out Tyler.”

“It just doesn’t seem like I can ever escape the cage I’ve made for myself.”  
“If the alternative is staying unhappy and continuing to want to shoot your brains out, really it’s do or die, and I get the impression that you’re more than capable of facing up to something as daunting as starting again.”

“What if it’s too late to start again?”  
“You’re 30, Tyler. 30 years old, so you’ve been hiding your sexuality for more than half your life which I’m sure feels like an incredibly long time, but now imagine you have to keep this up for another 60 years. Can you really keep denying yourself any chance at happiness for the rest of your life?”

“My family.” Tyler whispered, tearing up.   
“Your family will love you regardless, their kind of love is unconditional, which means nothing will stop them caring about you. You know they’re not homophobic, and I promise the minor details like timelines aren’t important when it’s something as important as this. They’ll understand that it took you a while before you were ready to come out, it’s a long process and it takes everyone a different period of time to come to terms with it and build up the confidence, and if anything they’ll be prouder of you for coming forwards now when it’s clearly been so difficult for you.”

Josh was riding a lot on the fact Tyler said his parents watched Queer Eye. He knew so many parents weren’t decent enough to accept their children, but he also knew that mentioning the possibility of total abandonment to Tyler would only further encourage him to keep hiding himself away, which was the last thing he should be doing in Josh’s opinion. Granted, that opinion was only an opinion. 

“I’d be throwing so much hard work away.” Tyler sniffed, not crying but not far off, his eyes swollen with sparkling tears.   
“Hard work that’s got you where?”  
“Good job, amazing money, the chance to start my own side business,” the first tear fell and was quickly brushed away. “Connections, power, influence,”  
“I understand that all seems important now, but later on when you’re looking back on your life, what’s-“  
“I’ve worked so hard Josh, please, please, I already know what you’re saying so you don’t have to say it out loud. I know I’ve achieved nothing but constructs and when it’s boiled down I am nothing and have nothing and will ultimately spend my entire existence unhappy and die alone. I know.”

Josh had pushed his agenda too far and the regret tasted horrible in the back of his throat. 

“I’m sorry.”  
“You’ve got nothing to apologise for. You didn’t screw up my life, I did,” Tyler had a fake wavering smile as he wiped his face of the fresh tears. 

“Tell me about your startup, that sounds like it could open up so many possibilities for you,” Josh hoped a distraction might prevent Tyler from stewing for too long.   
“Accounting consultancy firm, just more of the same shit I hate. More money, more networking, more fucking finances.”  
“Do you think it will make you happier than your current position? Could you leave your job for the startup full time?”   
“S’gonna make me worse. I’m gonna be finding clients, which means putting myself out there, which actually means hiding myself as deep as I fucking can behind the front of the ostentatious priggish pompous dickhead that I pretend to be.”

“I prefer this you to the asshole earlier who called me an errand boy.” Josh told him and Tyler let out a sad little whimpering laugh, then looked across at him despairingly. 

“I think you’re so brave.”  
“Me?”  
“Yeh,” Tyler nodded. “You sacrificed everything in pursuit of authenticity, I, I’m a coward.”  
“A lot of people might say the way I went about things was cowardly - going behind Debby’s back, cheating on her, not being honest with her once I had figured out my sexuality. It’s all about perspective and I know a lot of people who’d consider you brave for going into a traditionally hetero environment and fighting to maintain appearances.”  
“Not you though.”  
“Hmm?”  
“Some people might consider me brave, but you don’t.”  
“I never said that Tyler.”  
“But it’s true.”  
“I think you’re doing a really scary thing by trying to keep a secret from everyone in your life and I’m sure it takes a lot of bravery to keep part of yourself hidden-“  
“No! No, you, you don’t understand! I don’t hide behind a mask because I'm brave, it’s because I'm fucking petrified of the alternative!”  
“And living with fear requires you to be brave.” Josh replied calmly to the outburst. 

Tyler was crying more and more and Josh’s instinct was to bundle him close, bound so quickly by their shared experiences of being different, but he knew that might not be appropriate considering how adverse Tyler was to anything that could suggest his sexuality. 

“Do you want a hug? You can say no.”  
“That would be n-nice,” he nodded, covering his face as it twisted and distorted with the sobs that came just as Josh wrapped his nearest arm around Tyler’s shoulders and let him nestle up against his chest. 

“I meant what I said earlier, you get the full service with Pablo’s Pizzas. Buy 5 pizzas and your 6th comes with a cuddle.” Josh murmured a crappy joke that Tyler tried to laugh at through his shaking breaths. 

“I’m sorry if I went too far, telling you to just up and leave your life behind, I know it’s not that easy. So many times I’ve been tempted to move to Chicago to try and be closer to Charlotte, see whether that would convince Debby to let me play even a marginally bigger role in her life, but I’m never able to cut off my ties here. I don’t have a whole load of friends that wouldn’t survive long distance, I don’t have responsibilities like you do, I only see my siblings or my parents every other week or so which we could totally still do from Chicago, I’m just anxious about leaving behind familiarity and plunging into the unknown, so it wasn’t fair of me to make it sound like I think it’s supposed to be an easy choice for you.” 

He could feel Tyler trembling in his embrace, sense the silent work he was doing to try and control his breathing, almost hear the cogs whirring as he thought and overthought everything they’d been discussing. 

“I’m just sscared the r-risk won’t pay off.”  
“The risk of coming out?”  
“Y-yeh, what, wh-what if I give up everything and I’m s-still unhappy?”   
“I think it will take time for the dust to settle and it probably won’t be some instant fix that resets everything, but slowly things will get better. If you need to help of a therapist again then at least you’ll be able to be honest with them this time which should make it more effective, and you’ll have your family by your side - I know it’s terrifying but I genuinely do think it’s gonna change things for you in the best way Tyler.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Does he have a cult following?”  
“Yes, absolutely yes.”  
“Okay okay, I think I know who it is, uh, does he have his own line of sneakers?”  
“Oh my god, seriously? You’re thinking Kanye now?” Josh pulled a face that made Tyler laugh. 

“You said he has a cult! Kanye has a cult!”  
“Kanye has his Sunday service, and having a cult-following and having a cult are very different things Tyler! Besides, didn’t we already say he’s white??”  
“We did, he’s a white male, American, actor, older than 60, A-lister, also sorta kinda does music, fashion icon, hot - scuse me for thinking Kanye,” Tyler rolled his eyes.   
“He’s like 40 tops, and again, important detail here, not white! Ty, I swear you’re getting worse and worse at this game.” 

Tyler was getting the hang of the game, or at the least, getting the hang of what made Josh laugh or cry out in laughable frustration as he wrongly guessed the celebrity Josh was thinking of over and over again. 

“Is he in one of your favourite movies?”   
“Yes,”  
“What type of movies does he do?”  
“Yes or no questions only!”  
“Fine, fine, um, okay lemme think, Joshua William Dun, 31 year old housekeeper and delivery driver who I have known for all of 3 hours, what oh what is your favourite film,” Tyler hummed dramatically, squinting at him. “Now maybe you think you’re a joker and The Room is your fave, but I don’t think Tommy Wiseau quite classifies as an A-lister yet, so probably not that.. maybe you’re edgy, more of a Casablanca or Citizen Kane kinda guy, but for any male from classic Hollywood you’re probably not looking at a fashion icon-“  
“Shade,”  
“I said what I said.” Tyler shrugged and Josh laughed. 

“Maybe Charlotte’s softened you, maybe I need to be thinking kids films, or some soppy chic flick,”  
“You’re thinking too broad, go for commercially successful films,”  
“What happened to yes or no answers only??”  
“Well I think you’re in need of any bone I can throw you, don’t you mister?! I mean this is supposed to be 20 Questions, I guessed your celebrity in 6, meanwhile you’re on about 50 and have basically got nowhere!” Josh chuckled his way through the rant.   
“But yours was easy, I picked Obama and you asked if they were a politician so of course you got it right, easy - but you picking an actor?? I mean a while male actor in successful movies? Jeez Josh, that still leaves me with like a million people to go through!”

Usually Tyler liked to win games, he was competitive to an aggressive extent, but with Josh he’d lost all sense of importance in the crown and instead was revelling in the fun that could be found along the way. 

“Come on, try guess the movie, going with the big box office hits,”   
“Alright, Avatar?”  
“No,”  
“Titanic,”  
“No,”  
“That new Avengers movie,”  
“No, but he is in one of the MCU films,”  
“What?? Isn’t everyone in Endgame?”  
“Not quite everyone, come on Ty, that’s a really good way to narrow it down, what characters are in the universe but not in endgame?”  
“Gah, I fucking hate Marvel, okay, umm,” Tyler genuinely tried to think about it, “Thor’s brother, what’s he called?”  
“Loki,”  
“Loki, yeah, Tom Hiddleston,”   
“Nope, he’s in it, he’s in the part where they go back to 2012-“  
“Honestly genuinely do not care.” Tyler couldn’t resist interrupting Josh, who burst out laughing. 

“Alright, I give up, tell me,”  
“Don’t want another clue?”  
“One more,”  
“My favourite movie of his is Jurassic Park,”  
“Ohhhh, fuckin, oh what’s his name, ohhh, Jeff Goldblum!”  
“Yes!” Josh seemed proud of him. “See, you got there in the end!”

Tyler chuckled a little, rolling his head against the wall of the elevator in hopes of preventing it from stiffening up, then smiled across at Josh. 

“Is Jurassic Park really your favourite film?”  
“Not of all time, for that I’d probably say Fight Club, then number 2 has to go to Moana, and a close third is Jurassic Park.”  
“I’ve never seen Moana or Frozen or any kids film that has come out since, like, ‘98.”  
“Why does it not surprise me that you stopped watching kids’ movies when you were frickin 10 years old, I bet you were that kid who started drinking black coffee and reading broadsheets on your first day of middle school.” 

“Not far from it actually. My mom is a freelance sculptor, she’s amazing, she does pretty much any medium you can think of, clay, stone, metal, ceramics, glass, wood, wire, wax, even food sometimes, but she’s never been so good at the business side of things. When I was 12 I spent a whole weekend making her this pricing strategy, a complete breakdown of how much she should be charging with every detail taken into consideration from raw materials to the gas she used to deliver it,”  
“And you’re sure you’re gay...” Josh squinted at him, but Tyler just threw his bundled up tie at him, hitting him in the face, making him laugh. 

“I’m just saying, I once ordered the same sweater 4 times because I kept forgetting to remove it from my basket, and I’m considered pretty money-savvy by gay standards,”  
“4 times? 4 times? Once, okay, you made a mistake, twice is kind of ridiculous, but 4 times Josh?! My god,“  
“I have no defence for myself,” he just shrugged with a guilty snigger. 

Tyler had gone from panic attacks at even the smallest chance that someone might know his sexuality to joking about it with a stranger in just 3 hours. It was weird. It was nice. 

“Your mom’s a sculptor then hey? That’s gotta be pretty cool,”   
“Cool, terrifying, it flips between the two,”  
“Terrifying?” Josh narrowed his eyes, intrigued.   
“Picture this, you’re 7 years old, you wake up in the middle of the night because you hear something in the backyard, you peak through the slit in the curtains and your entire lawn is covered in 24 life-size life-like human beings all staring back at you.”  
“Ooh yikes no thanks, I thought you meant like cute oversized dragonflies for your pond, not Weeping Angels,”  
“It changed every week, I never knew what I was coming home from school to. Some days she’d be sat at the kitchen table just calmly twisting wire into mini cacti, other days she was out in the yard welding 15ft beasts with sparks flying everywhere, it was chaos.”

“What does your dad do?”  
“He’s a labourer so it depends on what contracts he gets but roofing, plastering, paving - construction basically,”   
“And he still does that??”  
“Yep, almost 60 and still as strong as ever. Between the pair of them, it’s fair to say their house is under constant renovation. Seems like every time I’m over, they’ve knocked down another wall or added another room on the back,”  
“Bet you had the best school projects though,”  
“Oh yeah, I did the solar system and Mom blew glass planets for me, did a model village and Dad built a plumbing system so that I could have a constantly running river that recycled over and over,”  
“Eugh, you were that kid. I was the one who forgot until the night before and then my dad just sighed and gave me a cereal box, tinfoil and a roll of tape, and I put about 8 minutes of effort into all my projects throughout my school career combined.”

“It was a nice way to grow up, a happy household, my parents are so in love and so good for each, Mom always coming up with these crazy ideas that my dad then always finds a practical solution for, it was amazing being surrounded by that kind of partnership all the time. They’re both Yes people so nothing was ever out of the question: in summers they used to help me and my siblings build all sorts of crazy stuff, treehouses and bike jumps and zip lines and little punt boats, anything,”  
“That’s what I want to do for Charlotte, I don’t want her stuck inside glued to screens, I want her outdoors,”  
“Yeah, I’ve got so many happy memories,”

“I bet that’s where you get it from, your urge to be creative, I bet it’s from your mom,”  
“Uh huh,” Tyler nodded, “they’re really proud of me for going off and doing something in the city, there’s jokes of course, my family all call me Hot Shot or Big Time or whatever, but I know they’re all really proud of me. Having said that though, I know secretly Mom would love it if I did something she could understand. Her language is the arts, and in this life I’m living right now, everything is numbers,”

“I know you said earlier that you got into finance to try and throw anyone off the scent, but that story about you doing your mom’s pricing for her, did you always hate your job or have you grown to hate it?”  
“Eh, I mean I didn’t just randomly pick a ‘straight’ career out of a hat, I opted for finance because it made sense with me being pretty good at maths in high school and finding economics and stats easy to follow, and my parents did always say I was the only one any good at budgeting in the family. I saved my pennies up from the day I started getting pocket money, meanwhile Mom would be ordering in slabs of marble for playing around with and Dad would come home with a new power tool every other day to add to his toy collection. They even had a picture from a mall photo booth on their fridge for a couple of years where I was wearing a prop shirt that said brains, Mom’s said beauty, and Dad’s said brawn. They only took it down when my younger siblings got old enough to feel left out by it, but I think the point stands - I always had a knack for numbers and I just chose to pursue that mild talent for so long that I can now no longer stand them.”

“Do you have a number you hate the most?”  
“7. 7 can go fuck itself.” Tyler tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t help laughing with Josh. 

“Maybe if you decide it’s too big a jump to completely let go of everything, maybe a compromise would be spending more time with your mom, just being creative together?” Josh suggested.   
“She would love that so much,”  
“And you? Would you love it?”  
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I, I don’t spend much time with her one on one these days - by these days I mean since I moved out for college,”  
“Why not?”  
“She’s too good at reading people, she’s the type of lady who will know that you accidentally broke a mirror in Ikea and ran away a month ago just by the way you walk into a room, you know? And I would hate for her to pick up on the fact I’m keeping secrets from her, or worse, for her to actually figure out what the secret is. I reckon she’s already suspicious because I’ve never introduced a girlfriend to her, and if I give her much else then she’s going to put all the pieces together.”

“I know ultimately I’m still just a stranger you’re trapped in a lift with, but I feel like I know you and I know your family a bit too, and I don’t get it Tyler. Maybe there’s a little bit of an issue with coming out to your friends, but your family? They sound amazing. Would it really be so bad if they knew?”

Tyler blinked, then blinked again, then felt how dry the air was as it hit the back of his throat and so had to cough a little to clear it out. 

“Can we not talk about that please?”  
“Sorry, sorry, I crossed the line, I’m sorry but now I know where the line is I won’t cross it again.”   
“It’s okay, I’ve, uh, we’ve been talking about me for ages, tell me something about you and your family?” Tyler felt bad for making the previously relaxed atmosphere awkward, but he also knew he didn’t want to get into why he didn’t feel comfortable coming out, because they meant delving into his own internal homophobia, and he’d already used up his yearly allowance for crying in one day. 

“I guess my bunch are pretty typical, my dad’s a high school history teacher, Mom’s a full time mom and now granny, I’ve got a brother and two sisters and I’m the eldest. I really really wanted to drop out of high school because I sucked at pretty much everything and was probably gonna fail anyway, but my dad being a teacher and everything, he was not having any of that so I was dragged through to graduation by my ear, uhh, yeah, we’re not that interesting I guess,” Josh shrugged. 

“Have they all met Charlotte?”  
“Yeah, Debby loves my parents actually so they get better access than me in some senses, they get to FaceTime her pretty much whenever they want and then they go up to Chicago every now and then for the weekend, sometimes we cross over and all do our Saturday routine together, then sometimes it’s just them and they do their own thing with Debby and Liam, but yeah, they’ve met her and know her and love her,”  
“And your siblings too?”  
“They don’t go up to visit quite so often, maybe once a year, but they join my folks in FaceTiming her all the time, so I like to think she knows she’s got the whole Dun clan behind her.”

“How come Debby’s fine with your parents if she’s not with you?”  
“She’s not close to her own family so when we were together they basically took over as her stand in parents, my dad helped repaint her entire apartment and my mom used to teach her family recipes, that kinda thing, just looked after her basically. Then when she found out about what I did, she left town, she stopped talking to any of us for a couple of months until Charlotte came along, at which point she called my dad for help because she freaked out about having to take a newborn home by herself. Of course my dad being amazing drove 330 miles in record time and helped Debby with all the first times, you know, first time holding her whilst stood up, first time dressing her, first diaper change, first breastfeed, first buckle into her car seat then first journey home, and he stayed with her a few days to make sure she was settled, and once my dad left, Debby called me up to sign the paperwork. Basically my dad’s ace and deserves the chance to be the best grandpa in the world to Charlotte, and I’m still making up for cheating on Debs and ripping her away from my family and her friends and everything,”

“I know I already said this but she really does hold a grudge for a long time, like I’m sure it was fucking horrible for her at the time to lose you, but does she ever consider how horrible it must have been for you to figure out you’re gay just as your girlfriend is up the duff?”  
“It, it was tough, yeah,” Josh scratched his jaw.   
“Do you even get to FaceTime Charlotte like they do?”  
“I do on her birthday and Christmas, but, uh, but the rest of the year I’m not really supposed to, I just get to call her on Tuesdays over the car speakerphone when Debby picks her up from school.”  
“On the speakerphone?”  
“Yeah, Debby and Liam prefer to be able to listen in, make sure I’m not saying anything inappropriate or whatever,”   
“Eugh, they can fuck off, can’t they? Inappropriate? She’s your daughter and you’re perfectly capable of having a nice chat with her without needing their supervision.”

Josh shrugged and Tyler hoped he hadn’t upset him. 

“Why don’t you get mad at it? At all the rules?”  
“Guess I’m playing the long game, if I can keep Debby and Liam as sweet as possible then I’m hoping they’ll relax eventually,”  
“She’s 6 though Josh, if you keep this pace up she’s gonna be 60 before you get anywhere near joint custody.”

“I told you Ty, I don’t want joint custody,”  
“Why, just because you don’t have room for all her stuff as your place?”  
“It’s not just that-“  
“Because I’ll give you $100,000 right now to get you a bigger place.”  
“Tyler!”  
“What? I earn at least 5 times that a year without bonuses and right now all it does is sit in various accounts, accumulating interest that I’m never gonna spend. Why not give it to you?”   
“Because one day you’re going to need it! I’m just a stranger, don’t go giving away crazy amounts of money like that, are you insane? I thought you were meant to be good at finances!”  
“It’s an investment.”  
“No! Stop it! I don’t want it!” Josh snapped at him harshly. 

Tyler hadn’t expected Josh to get mad, he thought he was doing a nice thing for him and he was getting mad. 

“Look, Tyler, I appreciate the gesture, really, I do, but not every problem can be fixed with cash, okay?”  
“No, I, I get that, I do, but this problem can, can’t it?”  
“The fact that I’m fucking terrified of failing as a father and screwing up my little girl? No!”   
“You won’t fail her Josh, you’ll continue to be an amazing fa-“  
“You can’t possibly know that,”  
“But I do,”  
“No you don’t Tyler! Will you listen to what I’m actually saying rather than presuming you already know?” Josh was legitimately cross with him and he felt embarrassed, shrinking away from him. 

“It’s all lovely and sweet to gloss over everything and be certain that I’m going to be able to be a positive influence on her life, but you’ve known me 3 hours and that is not enough to understand who I am. I’ve got shit going on, alright? Shit that’s not gonna go away with money and shit that I have no right to drag into my daughter’s life. I keep saying it over and over again, I don’t want joint custody, she’s better off where she is, it’s not fair to force my way in, but you don’t listen! I don’t know how else I can say this, I do not want joint custody! And that does not mean I don’t want Charlotte, because I do, I love her, but it would be wrong for me to fight for anymore than I already have, so for the last time, will you please drop it?!”  
“Sorry,”

Josh sighed and looked away, and Tyler felt his heart sink in his chest. He really didn’t mean to upset him, he might be a stranger but their 3 hours of conversation had been the most refreshingly honest that Tyler had had in years, he’d felt like he could be himself with Josh for the first time since he was a teenager, and now he’d stuck his foot in it big time. 

“It was nice of you to offer though, the, uh, the money,” Josh was the first to speak, voice softer already.   
“It wasn’t nice, it was presumptuous and ignorant, and I didn’t mean to insult or upset you but I did and so all I can do is apologise.”  
“I forgive you,” he sniffed and Tyler smiled weakly. 

“My busy work schedule isn’t just because I’m trying to fundraise for her, sure it’s an added bonus of the long hours and of course it’s wonderful to be able to support Charlotte financially, but I work all the time because I've got to keep myself busy or else my mind wanders,”   
“Right,”  
“I get overwhelmed a lot,”  
“By life?” Tyler didn’t know whether he was allowed to ask questions or not.   
“By life, by pressure and expectations and all that bullshit, by, um, by time, I just, I, I always have this feeling in my chest like that sensation people get when the last train is going to leave in 2 minutes and they’re 5 minutes away from the station, you know?”  
“Uh huh,”

“She’s growing up so fast, one minute she was a tiny baby and now she’s so flippin big, and because I go so long between each visit, every time I’m knocked back by how much older she seems and I can just feel her slipping through my fingers.”  
“Sorry, earlier when I said she’s 6 and soon she’ll be 60, I was just, I don’t know, being a self absorbed prat, and I’m sorry,”   
“S’okay, honest, it’s not you, it’s a me thing,” Josh shrugged, looking down at his hands as he fiddled with them. 

“She’s 6 now and she’s in school, and she’s already aware that she’s different from her classmates because her daddy lives super far away, and she’s got an extra daddy who loves Mommy, and at the moment she loves that because it’s exciting and special because it’s different to all her buddies, but how long till that changes? How long till she starts feeling self conscious about being different, how long till she starts questioning why I’m not there with her, how long till she starts thinking it’s her fault and that I don’t want her and I don’t love her and I don’t care about her? How long till the abandonment issues start creeping in and her behaviour becomes a problem and she starts internalising everything and hating herself? How long till all my worst nightmares become a reality and I break my little girl?”

“I don’t want to sugar coat everything and gloss over potential problems, but it might not be inevitable Josh. It sounds like her stepdad is there to be a daily male role model for her, then you see her often enough for her to know you love her and care about her,”  
“I show her I love her for a couple of hours and then I still turn around and leave her every month. There’s no way that won’t screw her up.” 

Tyler appreciated he didn’t have the full picture, but still he had the urge to ask why Josh didn’t solve the problem by trying to get more custody. He told himself to shut up. 

“You’re thinking it again, aren’t you?”  
“No,”  
“Yes you are Tyler, you’re thinking why don’t I move to Chicago and get joint custody and that way I won’t have to leave her and then she won’t get abandonment issues,”  
“I, I get that it’s not that simple.” 

Tyler didn’t really get it at all, but he supposed Josh didn’t really get why he didn’t just hurry up and come out already, so he didn’t say anything else. 

“I get panic attacks, all the time,”  
“I’m sorry Josh,”  
“Every day near enough, and my mom, she gets them too. She, well she was having panic attacks before, but after I was born she got diagnosed with postnatal depression. She really struggled to bond with me, she had intrusive thoughts about hurting me, she got incredibly unbearably destructively anxious about me and didn’t want to be near me, and she became suicidal and actually made an attempt on her life when I was 3 months old. My dad put her into therapy after that and it helped, it really did help her, and she managed to go on and have my sister 2 years later and didn’t struggle so much with her, then my brother came along and that was a bit tougher on her but she got through it, and by the time my youngest sister was born, my mom was doing great in comparison.”  
“Good,”

“Obviously a lot of time has passed and our relationship is pretty close to normal now, but I worry about it all the time, about how she struggled to bond with me and whether that’s changed me in some way and that’s why I struggle with my mental health, and whether I’ve now perpetuated the cycle and Charlotte’s going to struggle as well. My mom has mental health issues and now I do; I’m petrified that now I’m going to pass those issues onto her next. That’s not me blaming my mom, of course I’m not, but the transferring nature of the pattern just scares the crap out of me because I never want my little girl to feel like I do,”  
“Yeah,”

“I just feel so trapped all the time! There’s no way I can win and so I’m always ladened with the guilt. Of course I feel so lucky that God blessed me with a daughter, it’s an honour, but it’s also a huge responsibility and I have to constantly make decisions that are going to impact her for the rest of her life, and that’s so much pressure every minute of every day and I always feel like I’m doing the wrong thing. I want to be with her all the time but I can’t be with Debby without suppressing a part of myself, so Charlotte would have to switch between two homes which would be so disruptive and destabilising for her, and I’m terrified that my mental health would only get worse if I was caring for her 3 days a week because of the increased pressure and then she’d be exposed to the mess I can become and that’s not fair. Then the alternative is I stay away from her to shelter and protect her, but then she’s going to feel abandoned and neglected and I’ve read the stats about fatherless homes so I know that wouldn’t work out well either. I’ve tried to find the sweet spot in between where I see her often enough that I can be a positive association for her, but not so often that it overwhelms me and I crack, but every day I question whether I’m doing the right thing and how awful a father I am and it’s exhausting.”

“I read this thing once, it said that bad people don’t worry about whether they’re bad people or not - you worry and put too much thought and consideration into your actions to be a bad father. Everything you’re doing is for the right reasons and with good intentions, and that makes you a good father Josh,”  
“No it doesn’t, raising a strong happy woman would make me a good father. It doesn’t matter how good my intentions may have been, if she ends up unable to form healthy relationships with men and it ruins her whole life then I’ve failed her.”

“Do you think maybe sometimes your expectations of yourself are too high?”  
“They've got to be high, she deserves the best,”   
“All you can give is your best, which I believe you’re doing, but you’re expecting yourself to be perfect and the truth is there’s no such thing as a perfect parent.” Tyler told him. “You’re so critical of yourself and it’s not healthy.”   
“My health has got nothing to do with it,”  
“Come on, we both know that’s not true. You were just saying how your mom’s mental health might have affected you, and now you’re saying it doesn’t matter if you get worse? Charlotte needs you healthy,”

Josh twiddled his thumbs and Tyler questioned whether he might be on the verge of tears. 

“Raising a kid is really flippin hard,”  
“I, I’d heard that,” Tyler nodded gently.   
“I just want her to be okay,”  
“Take each day as it comes, but from what you’re saying, she sounds like she’s doing great.”

“How serious were you?”  
“Hmm?”  
“Earlier, the money, how serious were you being? Be honest, I don’t want to overstep or back you into a corner.”  
“Completely serious, I want to do it,”

Josh sighed. 

“I, I feel weird accepting it, but I know it might be the best thing I ever do for her.”  
“Money is a lot of things, it opens doors and grants you access to opportunities that otherwise you couldn’t have, but it’s not everything. Yes, the money could be an amazing thing for her, but I promise you it won’t be better than you being a present and positive influence in her life. It won’t be the best thing, the best thing is you being there for her.”

Tyler could tell Josh was uncomfortable. 

“I’m not using it and I know it could make changes for you and your daughter that it never could for me. It’s best it does something for someone other than sit in an account, so whether you give it all to Debby tomorrow or you use it to move to Chicago or you just use it yourself so you can quit your jobs, the money’s yours and I know you’ll do right by it.”  
“$100,000?”  
“More if you want?”  
“No no, I couldn’t, I just, I mean that’s incredible, I’m, I kind of don’t really know what to say because it’s going to change her life, change all our lives, I, yeah, your generosity has me in shock,”

“It’s not really as generous as you think, it’s really not that much money to me and I’m not saying that to boast, I just don’t want you to feel guilty or indebted or anything. You don’t owe me anything, alright? It’s a no strings attached gift, it’s an investment in your daughter, it’s yours and I don’t want you to ever try and pay me back, deal?”  
“You’re sure?”  
“100%,”  
“Wow, uh, wow, thank you Tyler, I don’t know, wow,”

Tyler felt a weight lifted off his shoulders. Finally something good could come off the years of torture he’d put himself through in the corporate world. 

“What do you know about setting up trust funds?”  
“That you’ve heard that term in movies about rich kids and don’t realise there’s way better ways for your daughter to get that money. I’ve got an amazing attorney in my department that I’ll hook you up with, don’t worry, I’ll make sure this is all done right.”  
“Thanks Ty, really, thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh! So since posting we’ve now met little Rosie... my heart!


	3. Chapter 3

“I don’t think your business partner is coming.”  
“Nope I don’t think so either, and I’m gonna give him Hell for it when we do actually get out.”

It was a little after 2am. They’d caved and eaten the other two pizzas, including the controversial and, on Tyler’s behalf, greatly complained about pineapple. Josh also had a litre bottle of Diet Coke in his bag that they’d shared, leaving a little bit in the bottom in case of emergency. 

“I’m not gonna make it to Chicago in time for her dance class.” Josh had to face up to reality.   
“How long’s a flight?”   
“90 minutes,”   
“That’s not too bad, plus they’re an hour behind us, so it’s not completely hopeless. The moment these doors open, we can have you straight in a cab to the airport, don’t give up already.”  
“You’re presuming there’s just gonna be a plane waiting for me that happens to have a spare seat and be going where I want to go? No, Ty, that’s not how the real world works, this isn’t some movie, this is my baby girl waiting on her doorstep with her ballet bag on her back just watching all the cars drive past and none of them are Daddy, and it gets later and later and Debby has to break it to her that I’m not coming.”

He could picture it so clearly, little tears in her eyes, the false hope of seeing a silver car like Daddy’s but then having to watch it drive away from her. 

“It’s not your fault, Josh,” Tyler sighed, knowing he was right. “You didn’t sleep in or forget, this wasn’t avoidable, you’re trapped in an elevator. Maybe she’ll be upset, but she’ll forgive you.”  
“She shouldn’t have to be forgiving me, she’s 6 years old and I’m letting her down already!”   
“Josh-“  
“No! I’m letting her down! I’m letting my baby down, I’m letting her down, I’m le-“ he was panicking, his chest constricting and breathing laboured.   
“Josh, listen to me, Josh, stop it, I know you want to be with her but the fact of the matter is you can’t do shit until someone comes to get us out of here, so what good does panicking do? What does this solve?”  
“I’m allowed to be sad without it solving anything Tyler! Just because you lock everything up doesn’t everyone else has to!”

He didn’t mean to snap but it was hard to have someone say straight to his face that there was no point in experiencing what he was experiencing. Admittedly panicking wasn’t a pleasant way to feel, but internalising that fear wasn’t healthy either and he didn’t need Tyler to dismiss how he coped with the disappointment of failing his daughter. 

“Oh,” Tyler whispered meekly and Josh covered his face for a moment, rubbing his eyes and then massaging his temples, feeling the tension release as he unclenched his jaw and sighed. 

“I’m sorry, I, I, that was uncalled for,”   
“7 hours trapped in a matchbox, it would be mad if we weren’t going mad by now,”   
“Still, you were trying to help and I was an ass, sorry.”  
“It’s alright, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, right? I do exactly what you said, I keep things locked up and it’s left me isolated and desperately unhappy, so I should be the last one giving you advice on how to manage your emotions,”  
“Ty, you’re the only one I want telling me how to be,”  
“What, cos I’m the only one here?” He suggested doubtfully, a small uncomfortable chuckle hanging in the air.   
“No, cos you’re the only person I’ve ever spoken to this honestly before so as far as I’m concerned, you’ve got a more informed perspective than anyone else in my life.”

“What about your friends? Don’t they know about Charlotte?”  
“Of course they do, I can’t shut up about her, they just don’t know the full extent of the pressure I feel to be a good dad all the time and how often it keeps me up at night or sends me into panic attacks. Any time I begin to talk about how scared I am of screwing up, they come straight back at me with the usual ‘You’re doing great, don’t worry so much’ and move on with the conversation. As for the stuff I told you about my mom’s mental health, that’s something I never talk about with anyone except my dad.”

“Is she better now? Your mom?”  
“She’s still ill, she struggles with irrational lines of thought and managing her own emotions, but she’s better than she was. She’s on meds and sees a therapist twice a month and as long as nothing rocks her boat, she’s doing just fine. She talks to walls and bugs like they’re her friends but it does no harm, so I don’t even really consider it an issue these days. Anxiety was always an issue for her right from childhood and then having me just threw her over the edge and she spiralled, got really bad, and she’s had a low grade depression and overwhelming anxiety ever since, that’s what really restricts her.”  
“I’m sorry,”

“When Debby called to say she’d given birth, my dad was really worried about travelling to Chicago because it combined her two biggest triggers, being away from him, and the introduction of babies into her thoughts. She did amazing though, so so well, my brother stayed with her to keep her calm, and she didn’t get flustered by the baby talk at all. Then my sister Ashley had her first baby, Ellie, 5 years ago and everyone was a bit more relaxed about Mom getting involved, thinking she’d got better with babies, and that was a mistake,”  
“Relapse?”  
“Yeah, she, uh, she had a bit of a breakdown, the doctors don’t know whether it was her usual psychosis getting considerably worse or if she was having flashbacks, but she got really confused and thought the baby was me and started, um, started rejecting her like she did me and getting hysterical and ran away, she was missing for nearly 24 hours, and she made an attempt on her life again so ended up in facility for a few weeks to calm down.”  
“I’m sorry Josh, I know I already said that, but I’m truly sorry,” Tyler looked him straight in the eyes but it was too intense so Josh looked away. 

“Ashley’s had twins now as well and we were all more careful to keep Mom as separated from the pregnancy and birth as possible and it worked better, she still got worse for a while but she was safe and everything, I guess it’s just something we all have to be more aware of as we bring in the new generation.”

“Do you want more kids?”  
“It’s not really on the table.” He shrugged. 

“You don’t have to say, but do you think your poor mental health is genetic from your mom?”  
“Genetic, environmental, I, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s something that impacted my sense of safety when I was a baby because I didn’t have her there looking after me for the first 6 months basically, or maybe just growing up with her having panic attacks and days when she was too depressed to get out of bed influenced me, or maybe getting older and learning she got worse when I was born has, uh, troubled me, or maybe it’s just in my DNA, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence,”  
“Right,”

“It’s my biggest fear about Charlotte, that she’ll become ill. Maybe I’ll cause it with my genetics or maybe my less than ideal arrangement as her father has created the environment to trigger it, but either way I feel responsible. And I know it’s crazy because I would never even dream of blaming my mom for my panic attacks and yet I’m already blaming myself for things that haven’t even happened with Charlotte yet, but I dunno, it’s, it’s a lot to think about,”  
“Well you’ve been struggling and you’ve seen your mom struggle and the last thing you’d want it for your daughter to go through that same pain, so there’s nothing irrational about that, but you’re right that it’s not something you should be feeling guilty about. You’re doing the best you can,”  
“It’s scary not knowing whether my best is good enough.”  
“Your best is more than good enough, Josh.”

Josh sighed, stretching his arms out until his left elbow clicked, then tucking his hands back under his armpits for warmth. It wasn’t cold, but it was heading that way. 

“Sometimes I wish she was never born.” He mumbled numbly. “She is single handedly the best thing that’s ever happened to me, she gives my life purpose and meaning, she gives me direction and motivation and she stretches me to be the best me I can be, and all those other cliches which are totally accurate, and yet sometimes I find myself thinking that maybe it would be better if she never existed, because at least that way she wouldn’t suffer,”  
“She’s not suffering, Josh,”   
“You don’t know that,”  
“I do know that being a perfectionist will paralyse someone. If you’re only going to allow yourself to do something if the end result is complete perfection then you’ll never be able to do anything. Maybe it’s impossible for anyone to be a perfect parent, but that doesn’t mean nobody should have children. You’re allowed to trip up sometimes, it’s what makes us human,”

“My mom, she used to say it about me all the time when she was really sick, she used to say it over and over again, I wish he wasn’t born, I wish he wasn’t born, and now I’m thinking that about my own little girl. All I’m doing is perpetuating the cycle.”  
“The motive is completely different, it’s a whole different thing entirely,”  
“Is it?”  
“Yeh, I, I don’t want to be offensive or anything, but your occasional thought comes from a place of love, you’d rather she didn’t exist than she ever be hurt, whereas your mom’s reasoning came from mental illness. You’re trying to protect Charlotte, which is different from what your mom was trying to do whilst unwell.”

“I love my mom, I love her so much, I, I really genuinely love her and forgive her and, crap, and that makes it sound like I hold her responsible and I don’t, there’s nothing to forgive, I completely understand it’s not her fault, and I love her, and,”  
“Josh, I’m not going to judge you for whatever you say about her,” Tyler reassured him, interrupting his uncomfortable chatter.   
“She, um, she screwed me up Ty, she screwed me up and I always swore I’d never do that to my children, and, and since having Charlotte I’ve realised that it’s unavoidable. I can’t be a good father whilst struggling with my mental health, but I realised that too late. Now she’s going to pay the price.” 

“I think you’re underestimating the resilience of a child,”  
“A child shouldn’t have to be resilient, a child should be free to feel safe and loved and secure.”  
“I know you have panic attacks, but how does that stop Charlotte from feeling safe and loved and secure?” Tyler asked.   
“Because it stops me from being able to move to Chicago, which stops me being able to be present in her life. A child needs a father in their life.”  
“I know loads of people from single-parent households who have gone on to do amazing things Josh, but that’s not Charlotte’s predicament, she’s got 2 dads, not none. Even though he’s a dick to you, she’s got her stepdad, and she’s got you when you’re able to be there.”

“If I was better, mentally, I’d move.”  
“To Chicago?”  
“Yeah,”

“Are you trying to get better?”  
“I’m trying not to get worse.” Josh sighed. “I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to getting better.”   
“If you figure out the answer, do me a favour and lemme know,” Tyler sighed too, chuckling sadly. 

“Do you think you’ll do it?”  
“Do what?”   
“Any of the stuff we talked about earlier, like quitting your job or trying something creative or whatever,”   
“I really don’t know,” Tyler answered honestly. “Sat here right now, I want to. I want to leave this pretentious and ultimately miserable apartment block and move closer to where I grew up, I wanna stand up on my desk at work and resign with a dramatic speech, I wanna completely disappear and start life over as the world’s best tortoise shell painter or something weird like that, but I also want to be honest with myself, and I don’t know how realistic any of those ideas are.”

“I guess the decision is firstly whether you actually want to or are able to make any changes, and secondly, whether you want to build it up slowly or just take the plunge and change everything in one sweep.”  
“I just know that as soon as we get out of here, if we ever fucking get out of here, I’m going to slip back into my Tyler-suit again and turn back into the asshole I was when I first walked in.” Tyler tugged at his chewed fingernail as he spoke. 

“What made your walls come down? Maybe that can help keep them down.”  
“You.” He looked Josh straight in the eyes, making him feel funny, then looked away.   
“Me?”  
“Yeah, you.”  
“So maybe trying to hang around more gay pe-“  
“It’s not because you’re gay, I, I mean that helps, but, I dunno, it’s not only because you’re gay, I’ve met gay people before and never even dreamed of opening up to them, in fact I usually retract further, but with you I felt, I still feel, safe.”

Josh couldn’t resist a small tired smile at his new found companion. 

“Maybe it was fate that trapped us in here.”  
“Fate, in combination with dodgy mechanics,” Tyler smiled back. “It wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined my night going, and I’m in no rush to do it again, but I have to be honest and say I’m glad I was trapped with you.”   
“Same.” Josh didn’t know whether Tyler realised he was being somewhat flirtatious, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it out of fear of upsetting him. “And I’m not just saying that because I’ve made a 100k out of it.”

They both laughed. 

“Pablo’s, right?”  
“The place I work? Yeah, why?”  
“Well now I know where to order my pizza from if I wanna see a familiar face.”  
“That’s you presuming I’m still going to have this job by the time we get out of here, which is getting ahead of yourself.” Josh knew his boss wasn’t going to be as fond of their night of bonding. “There’s easier ways to see me though, like, I could give you my number?”  
“I’d like that.”  
“Swap?” Josh pulled out his phone and Tyler nodded, both of them entering their passwords and handing the devices across. 

Tyler’s wallpaper was a default stock image of some water droplets, and as Josh opened his contact book, it was full of words like ‘office number’ and ‘9 to 5 only’ next to each name, none of the nicknames and emojis that filled Josh’s own lists of contacts. 

As he put in his number, he made sure to spam 6 or 7 emojis after his name and take a discreet ugly selfie with a quadruple chin for his contact photo, then handed the phone to its owner and took his own, older and much shoddier, phone back. 

“Do you really think you’ll lose your job?”  
“Probably 50:50 odds. My brother Jordan, he works there on Fridays and Saturdays to help out in the kitchen since it gets so busy, and he’ll probably be vouching for me and trying his best at damage control, so we’ll see how successful he is.”   
“Will he be worried?”  
“Yeah most likely. I, I do go missing sometimes, when I get really really overwhelmed I take myself away from the situation and sometimes forget to tell people that I just need an hour or two to regather, but I don’t tend to let myself do that when I’m on the clock. He’ll probably think it’s a panic attack or something, hopefully he thinks I’m doing the right thing and managing it responsibly though, rather than presuming something bad is going down. Either way, nothing I can do to keep him in the loop.” 

“So your family know? You know, about your panic attacks and everything?”  
“Yeah, I guess mental health is quite a frequent topic of conversation because of my mom, and I have probably 2 or 3 attacks a week so that would be a big secret to keep, plus I had them growing up so it wasn’t really like hiding them was an option.”  
“Right,”  
“Does that mean yours don’t know?”  
“Correct.” Tyler scratched his cheek. “I, I don’t have as many, maybe 1 or 2 a month, but it’s just one of a million things I keep a secret from them, so..”

“It helps to have people know, that way they can be accommodating and supportive. If I get invited out and can’t go because I'm mid freak out, I don’t need to lie or come up with an excuse and get more freaked that they won’t believe me, I can be honest and they can just give me some space and it’s no problem.”  
“Yeah no I am far too deep into the life of a pathological liar to feel guilty for a small white lie like that,”

“Do your family think you have a girlfriend then? Or is that just for your office’s sake?” Josh didn’t know whether the topic might potentially be off limits, but they’d talked about every other intimate detail of their lives over the last few hours so it didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility. 

“Yeah it gets kinda complicated, she, uh, the fake girlfriend is called Jenna, and when I’m in the office I act as though we’re long term and serious and whatever so nobody tries anything with me, then with my family I kinda brush it off as a bit of fun, that way I don’t have to introduce them.”  
“Do you have a friend who pretends to be her?”  
“No, that would require someone to know my secret and I’m not so good at that whole ‘honesty’ thing, believe it or not given our confessional tonight, so she exists more as a concept than an individual. I just talk about her occasionally to throw people off the scent.”

“Do you know why you’re so uncomfortable with people knowing your sexuality?” He dared to try the big question again, and this time Tyler bit. 

“I guess I’m, uh, ashamed?”  
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you’re just attracted to a different bunch of people, just like your straight friends who prefer blondes to brunettes,”  
“Except it’s not like that at all,”  
“It is Ty,”  
“No, it’s, it’s unnatural,” Tyler looked physically unwell all of a sudden, face twisted slightly and tongue curled in his mouth like he tasted something foul. 

“You think homosexuality is unnatural?”   
“Well.. yeah, it’s basic biology, we’re supposed to live just to create kids, we’re predisposed to want to mate and pass on genes, and two men can’t make a child together, ergo, unnatural.”   
“Gay couples have been documented in like 1500 species, so it does occur in nature and is therefore natural by definition, and as for the whole biology gene thing, there’s a bunch of theories and one is called ‘helper in the nest’ and the idea is that a proportion of the population are naturally gay and they promote reproductive fitness in their siblings by helping raise their children and providing more food or education and whatever to the child, and in return some of their genetic code is then continued on by the niece or nephew who is more likely to survive thanks to the gay uncle, so does that satisfy your whole evolution issue? We’re still aiding in the passing down of our genes,”

Tyler didn’t say anything. 

“Besides, gay people can have their own kids. I’ve got a kid, and even so called ‘gold star’ gays can have kids these days.” Josh didn’t know whether to keep pushing. “But kids aren’t everything, if you’re using that method to define natural then you’re cutting out a whole chunk of society in infertile straight people and straight people who just don’t want kids, and you’re not arguing that they’re unnatural, are you?”  
“I, I don’t know.”

“Did someone tell you it’s unnatural to be gay?”  
“No, nobody did, I just, I mean, I, you, uh, you get it, right? You feel it?” Tyler’s voice had an anxious strain to it that was new.   
“Feel what?”   
“Like, like you’re, um, like your, your, just, I just feel filthy all the time.”

Josh resisted the urge to sigh heavily. 

“You’re not filthy Tyler, you’re gay and that’s alright.”

Tyler had that look on his face again, the bad taste expression, and Josh supposed he’d probably never heard anyone say that to him before. 

“I don’t, I, I don’t feel gay, I, I am attracted to men but it’s not, I, I don’t feel like I identify with being gay, it doesn’t feel like me,”  
“It’s a small part of who you are, it’s not something you have to be feeling constantly for it to be true.”   
“I mean I don’t, I, uh, I, I, I’m, the, I see other gays and I’m not like them, I’m, I’m not loud or feminine or sexual or anything like the rest,”  
“Neither am I,”  
“A-are you sure?”  
“That I’m gay? Oh yes, I’m 100% sure,” he nodded. “Stereotypes and cliches don’t represent an entire community, so you shouldn’t feel like you don’t belong, just because you’re not the same as the very narrow sample that the media portrays of the wide and diverse community - all sorts of people can be gay, including corporate finance seniors.”

“I don’t think the community would even want me,” Tyler mumbled, avoiding eye contact.   
“Why wouldn’t we? You’re great Ty,”  
“I’m not, I’m, I, I’m, I’m, uh,”  
“You’re scared, which is something we’ve all felt to varying degrees at some point in our lives, and out of any group of people in the world, we’re the ones who are most likely to understand how you’re feeling right now. I feel like most LGBT people have gone through a phase of denial and internalised homophobia, whether it be for a matter of minutes or approaching decades like you. Nobody is going to turn around and question why you waited so long to come out; for some people it’s a realisation they only announce in their old age, and by comparison you’re very young Tyler. Honestly, it wouldn’t be an issue, we’re able to understand more than most.”

“At least if people reject me these days, I can tell myself it’s the fake persona they don’t like. But if I’m truthful, if I put myself out there authentically and I’m rejected then there’s no buffer to hide behind and I’ll know I’m truly unwanted, and I’m terrified of not being wanted or accepted. I’d sooner live a lie than risk rejection.”

“Maybe there’s a chance you would be rejected by some hateful individuals, but you’ll also be accepted by a whole deal more, you’ll be accepted and seen and loved for who you truly are - maybe the buffer of lies protects you from being hurt, but it also prevents you from being seen and understood and connecting with people. I appreciate there’s an element of risk when it comes to being vulnerable, but the reward is so much sweeter.”

“There’s no going back, there’s no undo. If, if, I’m not saying I will, but if I did come out, I could never take it back.” Tyler made hesitant eye contact.   
“That’s probably true, but there’s also no going back and reliving these years your letting slip away from you either.”  
“It just feels like too much risk.”  
“There’s a lot at stake and it’s okay to be overwhelmed by it Ty,”

Josh let the silence sit for a moment, giving the man a chance to think. 

“How, how did you do it? I know Debby discovered you before you had a chance to confess, but how did you come out to your parents?”  
“Nothing too planned, I just went over and asked to speak to them, and bit the bullet sat at the dinner table and told them I’d come to the realisation that I’m solely attracted to men. They were more concerned about how to navigate the Debby pregnancy situation than my sexuality, they didn’t even seem that surprised to be honest. It was one of the easier parts of the whole scenario.”

“I just don’t want to hurt them,”  
“The only person you’re hurting is yourself,”  
“I’d rather me than anyone else.” Tyler sighed heavily. 

“I don’t want it to seem like I’m pressuring you to come out, it’s a scary process and you’ve got to do it at your own pace, I don’t want to rush you and twist your hand into making you do something you’re not ready for-“  
“But I need a kick up the butt. Half my life spent hiding is too long,”  
“Probably.” Josh nodded. “However if you want me to back off, I will.”  
“I don’t want that at all, I, I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, how you’re trying to change things for me, it’s, uh, it’s refreshing, so thank you. I appreciate you Josh.”  
“You’re welcome Ty,”

“What did you call it earlier? Internal homophobia?”  
“Internalised homophobia yeah, it’s pretty common and so there’s loads of resources out there. I know even risking having an LGBT browser open would be a big step for you, but there’s plenty of really helpful information and advice and stuff that might help to begin dislodging all this pent up emotion about your sexuality. It might be the best place to start?”  
“I’ll, I’ll look into it.”  
“That’s amazing bud, good for you.”

Tyler’s weak smile made Josh proud, and he grinned back at him. 

“I want things to change. The details as to how are still kind of blurry, but I know I want things to change.”  
“I really hope they do Ty, you deserve happiness,”  
“So do you. I’m sorry I don’t have helpful words for you like you do for me, but I genuinely hope you can find a way to forgive yourself for the things that aren’t your fault, and to have a little more pride in all you do for Charlotte. She’s a lucky little girl to have you in her corner, I hope you can see that some day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve always been very lucky as a bisexual woman that I’ve faced very little homophobia, whether external or internal. I can still appreciate the need for support for everyone within a marginalised community, and I’ve put a few links to LGBT organisations below. If you have any other good resources then please let me know and I’ll add them xx
> 
> https://www.stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/coming-out-0
> 
> https://www.rainbow-project.org/internalised-homophobia
> 
> https://www.revelandriot.com/resources/internalized-homophobia/


	4. Chapter 4

“Ty, Ty, wake up, Tyler wake up, listen,” Josh shook the man who’d fallen asleep until he groaned and winced away from the bright overhead lights of the elevator. 

Josh had offered him the spot on his lap once Tyler had started getting too tired to stay awake but kept slipping against the wall - perhaps wisely not wanting to put his face on the filthy floor they’d been sat on all night - and kept hurting his neck as he lurched back upright. At first he’d declined, however after another 10 minutes of drifting off only to startle back awake when he started falling, Tyler conceded and curled up, putting his head on Josh’s thighs. 

The delivery guy was also absolutely exhausted, though the awareness of each passing minute being another 60 seconds he wasn’t travelling towards Chicago and his little girl kept him awake. Instead he’d spent the 3 hours of Tyler’s nap just watching him sleep and trying not to sigh too loudly when the reality of the situation overwhelmed him. 

He wanted to live in the moment and find an ounce of enjoyment in the new bond he’d formed with the wary closeted man, but Charlotte’s imminent heartbreak at his neglect weighed too heavy on his mind. The time had been spent torturing himself with the image of her tears, and the thoughts were only interrupted by some metallic clanging sounds coming from above. 

“Hmm?” Tyler rubbed his squinty eyes with a balled up fist as he sat up, somewhat confused.   
“S’Josh, we’re still in the elevator, but listen, do you hear that sound, I think they’re trying to fix the doors or something,”  
“Oh,”

Tyler clearly wasn’t properly awake yet, and one side of his hair was pointing out in all sorts of funny directions after the hours of compression; it was cute. 

“Did I sleep long?” He sniffed, just as there was another clanging sound.   
“It’s nearly 6am so what’s that, about 3 hours? Which is a good nap but a shit night,”  
“Oh, uh, did, did you sleep?”  
“Nah, but Friday nights and sleep never usually quite work out for me anyway so don’t worry,”  
“Your kid,” Tyler was coming round and remembering their long conversation.   
“Charlotte, yep, shoulda set off 2 hours ago,”   
“I’m sorry Josh,” he sighed, then yawned, then sympathetically smiled somewhat blearily. 

Their eye contact was broken by yet another loud banging sound. 

“Hello?” Tyler called out, his voice hoarse from resting.   
“HELLO? CAN ANYBODY HEAR US? HELLO?!” Josh found it easier to raise his volume to a yell so loud it resonated off the shiny walls. 

“Hello! I hear you! I’m with fire and rescue, we’re working on opening these doors for you - how many people are inside?” A faint voice could just about be made out with a straining ear, and Josh grinned delighted and then shouted back as loud as he could.   
“2 adult males!”  
“Are you both okay?!”  
“Yes!”  
“GET US OUT OF HERE!” Tyler yelled commandingly with such authority that Josh was initially intimidated.   
“We will have you out in no time! There’s a complete mechanical failure but we’re going to pry the doors open and pull you out in the next few minutes, okay? I need everyone on the opposite side to the doors as we work, okay?”  
“Okay!” Josh called back to the muffled stranger, then stood up. 

Tyler had stood up as well and went straight to the mirror on the back wall and began flattening down his hair. He put his blazer back on, dug his necktie out and slipped it under his collar then tied it in a strong Windsor knot with complete confidence. After tucking his collar back down and straightening out his crumpled shirt as best he could and tucking it back into his suit pants, Tyler licked his thumb and ran it through his eyebrows to make them slightly neater, then fixed his hair a second time, all whilst staring at his own reflection intensely. 

Josh was watching him slip straight back into the person who first walked into the elevator, all those hours ago. 

“Ty,” he whispered.   
“Mm?”  
“Relax, yeh?”

He didn’t know what would be helpful, and that evidently wasn’t, but he felt weirdly uncomfortable with how quickly Tyler’s walls were flying back up now that they’d made contact with the outside world. It felt like any progress made was being unpicked at an unprecedented rate. 

“When we get out there, I don’t want you to use my name,”  
“What do you mean?” Josh continued whispering whilst picking up the pizza boxes and putting them back in his bag, blood rushing back to his feet.   
“I don’t want them thinking we were talking, there might be a crowd gathered,”  
“We’ve been in here almost 12 hours, they’d think it was weird if we hadn’t talked - it’s not, it’s not going to give the game away Tyler,”  
“Josh, listen to me, okay, watch my lips and listen to me. This is my apartment building, those people out there are my neighbours, this is my home. I don’t want, I repeat, I do not want anybody suspecting anything about anything, you understand? This is my home, you play by my rules.”

Tyler was hissing. Josh told himself it was only coming from a place of fear and the desperate need to protect himself, but he couldn’t deny that it hurt to watch the man he thought he’d connected with just retreat behind the asshole exterior yet again. 

“I won’t say anything.”  
“Not. A. Word.”  
“Sure, o-okay, I won’t say anything,” Josh held his bag close. “Your, your shoelace is undone.”

The businessman crouched down and double bowed it with admirable precision and then stood up again, those cold unfamiliar and unforgiving eyes meeting Josh’s again. 

“Remember, those people know me as an asshole. I don’t get on with others, especially not people beneath me, like delivery boys, because I don’t give them the time of day, don’t think they’re worth my time. If they suspect we’ve been talking then they’ll get suspicious, so I need you to keep your mouth shut, got it?”  
“Tyler, I’m hardly gonna go out there and kiss you loud and proud for everyone to see. It’s the fire crew and they don’t give a shit whether we’ve been talking or not, but I know you’re scared so yes, of course I’ll keep this charade of yours going, but you don’t need to be an ass to me in real life, okay? Just breathe, it will be fine, breathe.” 

Tyler looked in the mirror a moment longer and gulped, then ran his shaking hand through his hair one more time, trying to look as professional as possible. 

“I’m sorry.”  
“It’s okay,”  
“I, um, I can’t be seen inviting you up to my apartment, we can’t go together, people will talk, but there’s another staircase on the other side of the building. You use that one, I’ll use this side, go to the 28th floor and I’m apartment 1. You can come in, charge your phone, use the bathroom, get some food, and we’ll check for Chicago flights, okay? But I’ll only let you if you agree to not know me in front of the people who let us out, and you make sure nobody sees you going up to 28th. If anyone spots you then pretend you’re on a delivery, deal?”   
“Deal.”

Tyler huffed again and went back to checking his appearance again, and Josh felt filled with sadness again. His new friend was petrified.   
  
“It’s going to be o-“  
“Shut up. From now till my apartment, we’re strangers.” The firm growl cut straight through him and any comforting words fell from his mouth. 

Loud scraping and banging sounds continued to increase in pace and volume, pushing Josh’s heart rate up and up. He was aware the rescue team likely knew what they were doing, but he couldn’t stop imagining that they’d release the wrong lever and the elevator would plummet all the way down the shaft and kill them both on impact. 

Every now and then his brain tricked him into thinking he could feel them dropping, and it was making it hard to breathe. 

He found himself wanting to hear Tyler’s voice, not the false harshness he forced when playing the role he wanted the world to witness, but the real Tyler. The Tyler who’d emerged through gentle coaxing and genuine trust, the Tyler who seemed so far away now as he continued perfecting his hair in the mirror. 

They made eye contact in the reflection and Josh hurriedly looked away, not wanting to get snapped at again, even if it was just an act. He was suddenly feeling too fragile to take it. 

Things felt like they’d reverted right back to how the whole ordeal had begun - Tyler in his shell and Josh teetering towards panic at the idea of falling, and yet so much had happened in the past 12 hours that he couldn’t believe that it all meant nothing. Surely things would change going forwards, he sincerely hoped things would change going forwards. He hoped Tyler would stop wearing his mask, and as for himself, he wasn’t quite sure what to wish for, he just hoped something would happen that would change his life around. In fact maybe that thing had already happened. 

“Morning gentleman,” a huge screeching sound scraped through Josh’s ears and he turned around in time to see a levering contraption heaving the lift doors open slightly to reveal they were trapped between two floors. A firefighter was laying on his front on the higher one and flashed a friendly smile when they saw each other. 

“About fucking time, Jesus Christ, have you got any fucking clue how fucking long we’ve been waiting for you incompetent fuckwits? I mean Jesus, all the fucking taxes I pay and it takes you 12 hours to get here? Fuck me.” Tyler immediately started ranting at him.   
“I’d like to get out please, is, is it safe?”   
“Certainly sir, if you approach me th-“ the fireman ignored Tyler’s comment and addressed Josh’s instead.   
“Don’t fucking think so, seriously, you’re about to help this moron before me? This is my apartment block, I actually pay to be here, he’s just some bumbling halfwit who wandered in. My time is precious, it’s worth 50 times his, so I-“  
“Sir if you want to get out first then by all means do.” The man’s patience was clearly tested by Tyler’s act. 

Josh had to admit that the businessman was very convincing. He really did come across like a complete asshole. 

“Hello?? Earth to halfwit? You gonna actually contribute something and give me a fucking leg up or not?” Tyler waved his hand in Josh’s face obnoxiously and so the delivery boy sighed and threaded his hands together, forming a little platform for the skinnier to slip his Italian leather shoe into and push his weight through, giving him the height to scramble through the doors, somewhat inelegantly. 

Once Tyler disappeared from Josh’s limited view, the firefighter spoke to him. 

“Eeesh, bet you two got on like a house on fire,”  
“Oh you’re the expert,” Josh chuckled. “Let’s just say another hour and I might have throttled him.”  
“You mean you haven’t already? Impressive,” the man smiled. “You need help getting up or do you think you can make it yourself?”  
“Lemme try,”

Josh tossed his bag up first and the rescuer moved it aside, then he reached up and hooked his hands on the edge of the floor. He did a partial pull up then managed to swing his left elbow up and with some wriggling and kicks, he just about manage to get his knees up too and shimmied his way out. 

He was out. 

With a huge sigh of relief and an overwhelming appreciation for the solid ground his feet had finally found, Josh stood up and surveyed the 4 man crew who’d used an extensive set of industrial tools to release them, and also saw a poor man in a cheap suit who was receiving an aggressive grilling off Tyler. 

“..and I’m gonna sue the fucking managing agent and the whole fucking..”

Josh guessed the man worked for the building, and he also guessed that Tyler thought he was important enough to deserve a full display of the character he played. 

“Are you alright there bud? Your, uh, companion seems to have other things on his mind but do you need to see a medic or anything?” Another firefighter asked Josh.   
“Medic? No no, I’m fine,”  
“Are you sure? We’re trained in basic first aid, I could check for signs of dehydration?”  
“I’m okay, thanks, but I’m alright. Crick in the neck, but I dare say I’ll live.”  
“Try stretching it out, or hit it with some heat, I know dry rice in a sock bunged in the microwave for 30 seconds can make a pretty decent DIY heat pad,” the firefighter advised but Josh couldn’t help getting distracted by Tyler shouting away. 

“Uh, yeah, sounds good, thanks. Really, thanks for getting us out, I was starting to think we’d been forgotten,”  
“This only got called in about an hour ago so we came pretty quickly, I can only apologise that nobody spotted the problem sooner,”  
“No don’t apologise, you did great and I owe you one, thank you. I, uh, I don’t mean to sound unappreciative but I’ve been up all night and I work evenings so I need to go try and salvage my job if I can, so unless there’s any paperwork I need to do or anything, I probably ought to get going,”  
“I completely understand sir. If I could just take your contact info in case there needs to be any follow up, then you’re free to go,”  
“Free to go, gah, that sounds amazing,” Josh smiled tiredly and took the fireman’s extended notebook and pen and scribbled down his name and mobile number, then handed it back. 

“Thank you again, you guys are the best, thanks,” he picked up his bag with its empty pizza boxes for contents and made the active choice to make eye contact with each of the firefighters one by one in hopes of expressing genuine appreciation. “Thank you,”  
“Just doing our job sir, hope you manage to rescue yours,”  
“Fingers crossed,” he pulled his phone out of his pocket and waved bye as he started walking to the other end of the hall like Tyler had instructed him to do so. 

His phone was completely dead and he knew that, but he was trying his best to seem like he knew what he was doing in hopes of distracting them from realising he wasn’t taking the closest staircase down. With a few seconds of pretending to unlock the blank screen, finally there was a corner to turn down and he escaped their view. 

The apartment block was massive and it took a lot longer than he was expecting to reach the other side of the building, but eventually he did find those other stairs and there was absolutely no hesitation when choosing to take them rather than calling for an elevator that was also available. 

From now on he’d always be taking the stairs, even if he was going to the 28th floor. 

He didn’t want to rush, knowing Tyler could be yelling at the super for quite some time and it would be suspicious if he was caught lingering, but Josh was also aware that very few people would be up so early on a Saturday morning so it was unlikely he’d be caught. 

After 8 flights of stairs he paused for a moment, taking a chance to admire the sunrise out of the huge glass wall that illuminated the stairwell - it was a stunning view and a world apart from his own building’s stairwell that stunk of piss and was covered in graffiti. It certainly didn’t have natural light, in fact the blinking greenish light only worked half the time, and getting to see Columbus basked in the morning’s first rays from so high up was a rare treat. 

Even though he knew it didn’t make Tyler happy, Josh couldn’t help being in awe of the environment he called home. 

Pulling himself away from the view after a few minutes was hard, everything was interesting after 12 hours of staring at a blank silver wall, especially the city, but he reminded himself that he needed to be heading towards a certain city in Illinois that was home to his baby girl instead. And with Charlotte on his mind, suddenly it became hard to waste a single second. 

Josh walked all the way back across the building to get to apartment number 1 and was surprised to see the door was slightly ajar, thanks to a deadbolt being put across whilst the door was open. He knocked twice then let himself in. 

“Close it.” Tyler whispered and Josh did as he was told, shutting the door behind himself, and only once it clicked did the owner speak in full volume. “Did anybody see you?”  
“Absolutely nobody.”  
“Thank fuck, Jesus,”

Tyler was still stressed, running his hands through his hair and holding his head a moment, but Josh relaxed slightly as he looked around the massive apartment they were stood in. 

It was open plan with a huge floor to ceiling window - it lacked the sunrise of the other but Josh guessed he got beautiful sunsets instead - the styling was minimalistic, like something out of a catalogue, and he couldn’t spot a single personal item. If he didn’t know Tyler lived there, he would have guessed it was a show home, and that was kind of sad. 

Josh’s own apartment was a dump, but his fridge was littered with drawings Charlotte had done on Denny’s napkins and his walls had uneven mismatching photo frames filled with images of his loved ones. It was personal. Tyler’s was cold. 

“Here, you wanna charge up?”  
“Oh great, thanks,” Josh went over to the Apple charger he was offering and plugged his dead phone in. Tyler’s phone was also charging with another cable - who could afford 2 genuine Apple cables at once? - and he was reading a message that had just come through. 

“Someone checking in on you?”  
“No, it’s, uh, it’s my business partner, he sent it last night, he cancelled dinner on me, so, uh, so nobody knew I was missing.”   
“Well at least that explains why he didn’t come looking for you?” Josh tried to offer a comforting viewpoint.   
“He cancelled because, quote, I’m not really feeling it tonight.” Tyler read out glumly. “I got locked in an elevator for 12 hours and nobody noticed, and the man I considered my closest friend would rather do anything than get dinner with me.”  
“Ty-“  
“I wonder how long it would take anyone to notice, probably weeks, and that would just be because I’m not at work making money for them since that’s the only thing I can actually do that matters to anybody,”  
“Ty, stop it. Yeah 12 hours is a while, but it was overnight and no normal person is checking in on their loved ones in the middle of the night so-“  
“Think again.” Tyler sighed as Josh’s phone switched itself on and erupted in a chorus of buzzing. 

Josh looked down at the device as it struggled to cope with the massive influx of messages, vibrating and pinging maniacally. He tried to keep up but the screen kept scrolling and scrolling as it filled up. He had messages and missed calls from his boss and his brother Jordan and his dad and, shit, Debby. 

The pair watched the eruption that took nearly 2 whole minutes to complete, then Josh sighed. 

“17 missed calls from Debby. She’s gonna know I’m not on my way, she’s gonna know I’m not gonna make it in time for Charlotte’s dance class, gah, she’s gonna be so mad Ty, she’s not gonna let me see my little girl, she’s gonna tell Charlotte that I didn’t want to see her, she’s gonna stop me seeing my baby-“  
“Josh, hold your horses, alright. Call her, be honest, meanwhile I’ll check if there are any available flights, okay?” Ty put his hand on Josh’s, “Charlotte loves you, that’s all that matters. The rest can be sorted out, I promise.”

Tyler squeezed his hand fondly, Josh took a deep breath and sighed again, then he dug deep and hit redial on Debby’s contact. 

As the call rang, he wanted to pace anxiously but the charger kept him leashed to the wall, meaning all he could do was bounce his foot up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and-

“Josh?”  
“Hey Debby, I’m sorry it’s so early-“  
“Oh my god I’ve been so scared! Are you okay?? What happened? Please tell me you’re okay babe, I, I, god I thought something really bad had happened, I’ve been up all night terrified, did something happen?”

Debby sounded like she’d been crying, and it took him by surprise. 

“No no, I’m fine, I’m absolutely fine,”  
“Really? You are? Because Jordan called me J, he called me last night saying you disappeared in the middle of your shift and he couldn’t get a hold of you, asking whether you’d spoken to me, and he was worried, so so worried, he thought you’d done something really stupid Josh, and he got me all worried and I haven’t slept a wink, Jesus, I’ve been so scared! I couldn’t stop imagining what might’ve happened and,” she took a sharp intake of breath. “I care about you Josh and I don’t ever want you to feel overwhelmed and think things can’t change, because they can, okay? We can make this better for you, I promise,”

Josh was taken aback for a moment, not realising his brother thought he was as low as potentially being a suicide risk, and simultaneously blown away by Debby’s willingness to help. 

“I got trapped in an elevator on a delivery and I was in there 12 hours and the fire crew only just managed to break us out and the first thing I wanted to do was talk to you about my visit with Charlotte, I’m, I’m trying to find flights but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to you on time-“  
“Forget timings, it doesn’t matter, we’ll take her to dance and you can take over whenever you get here, or if you can’t make it today then come tomorrow, or next Saturday, or whenever you want Josh. What’s important is that you’re okay.”  
“I’m okay, is Charlotte okay?”  
“She’s sleeping and Liam put her to bed so she didn’t have to see me upset. She’s been really excited to see you so she’ll probably be sad when she finds out you’re delayed, but you can FaceTime her and tell her yourself, or I’ll explain, either way she’ll be okay, I’ll make sure of it.”  
“Thank you Debby, and I’m so sorry for upsetting you both, I’ll, I’ll make it up to her and to you somehow,”

“Where were you really Josh?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Did you have one of your panic attacks and it escalated? Or did you have preconceived plans for tonight?”  
“No, neither, no, I genuinely was in a broken elevator,”  
“Right,” Debby didn’t buy his story, she was imagining something much much worse. 

“What can I do to help Josh? Do you need to reduce how much child support you’re sending so that you can afford to start therapy? Because that’s okay, we can manage, your mental health and well-being takes priority over money,”  
“I’m okay,”  
“I don’t believe you sweetheart,”  
“It’s the truth, I was trapped there with someone else, I’m in his apartment now to charge my phone and I’ll put him on if you want him to back me up, because it’s the truth.”

“I’ll talk to her if you want,” Tyler offered, clearly and understandably listening in to his half of the conversation. 

“If you can’t talk to me about it, will you at least talk to Jordan openly? He was hysterical Josh, he kept saying things about how this is just like when your mom last tried to kill herself, he was inconsolable.”  
“I, I have a load of voice messages from him, I’ll call him next I promise, I just wanted to make sure Charlotte’s looked after first, she’s the most important thing in the whole world to me,”   
“I know she is Josh and she adores you, she knows you’ve got her back and so do I. You’re a good dad but right now you need to go and be a good brother, you hear me?”

Josh swallowed a dry gulp that was sticking in his throat. 

“Was he, um, was he really bad?” He mumbled, turning away from Tyler.   
“Unreachable, the worst I’ve ever heard him.”   
“I’m, I’ll, uh, I’ll just check the, uh, I’ll finish looking into flights first, try and sort something out with, uh, with all that, and, and maybe, actually, maybe it would be better if I just-“  
“Josh, stop it. Your brother has convinced himself you’ve killed yourself. I know it’s going to be a difficult conversation, I know you and Jordan aren’t especially good when it comes to talking about how things with your mom have traumatised you both but please, please, don’t find excuses to postpone the call because all that’s doing is extending his suffering.”  
“I need to see Charlotte though, I need to.”  
“And you can come pretty much whenever you want in the next week to make up for missing this morning, but first you need to call him. Please Josh, just call him.”

“I’m scared,” he whispered.   
“Why are you scared J?”  
“What if I can’t find the words? What if I can’t make him better? What if this is just like Mom all over again and I’m not going to be good enough to help all over again and-“  
“Darling, listen to me, okay? The best thing you can do for Jordan is also the best thing you can do for your mom, talk to them. It doesn’t even really matter what it is that you say, the words aren’t the important part, what’s important is that you’re there for them. All you need to do is talk and listen and be open, yeah? Let yourself be open,”


	5. Chapter 5

“Tyler? Wow, this is a pleasant surprise, hey kiddo, wasn’t expecting to see you, come in come in,”  
“Thanks,” Tyler followed his dad into his childhood home, palms already sweaty. 

The hallway was lined with boxes on either side, halving the width and making it a little cramped to walk through, but his parents were always ordering in so many random things for random projects that it didn’t even faze him. The kitchen had different colour walls and there was a new sculpture on the island to the last time he’d been there, but again he was used to things changing, and wasn’t in the least bit surprised that his dad was wearing overalls and had flicks of paint in his greying hair - it made for a typical Sunday outfit. 

“Did you tell your mom you were planning on coming round?”  
“No, sorry, should I have done?”  
“God no, don’t be ridiculous, we want you to come over whenever you feel like it, no appointment required, I’m just surprised you’re being spontaneous,”  
“That surprises you?”  
“Kiddo, you’ve had every single day of your life planned out since you were 8 years old,” Dad chortled. 

“Can I get you a cuppa?”  
“Coffee sounds good thanks,”  
“You take it Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act?”  
“Do I what?”  
“Black nun.”   
“God Dad, that’s, that’s bad even for you, but yeah black no sugar,”  
“Coming right up,”

Tyler didn’t like that his dad had to ask how he took his coffee. He could lie and tell himself his father only asked so he could tell the joke, but in reality he knew their relationship had become so weak that he couldn’t even remember his coffee order. 

“What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing’s wrong,”  
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, you’re turning up out of the blue, you’re not wearing a suit - something’s up,”  
“Am I really that easy to read?” His palms were clammy as he took the mug off his dad, clearly one of Mom’s creations, a hollow human skull with handles for ears. “Thanks,”  
“Careful, it’ll be hot,” Dad sat down on one of the weird stools Mom had carved from wood to look like they had tentacles for legs. Tyler opted to stay standing, leaning against the counter. 

“Do you wanna talk about it with your pop?”  
“It’s nothing,”  
“You and I spend a lot of time saying nothing to each other, come on, talk to your old man about something Ty,”   
“No really, it’s not a big deal, I just, I got stuck in an elevator,”  
“You got stuck in an elevator? Is that code for something financial or...”  
“No Dad, I literally got stuck in an elevator, Friday night I got trapped in the elevator in my building, there was a complete mechanical failure and I had no phone reception and nobody could hear me yelling, so I was trapped in there all night,”  
“Jesus Tyler, how long did it take them to pull you out?”  
“11 hours,”  
“Oh god, that’s, that’s horrible, why didn’t you tell us sooner son? They got you out yesterday morning and you didn’t think to call us and let us know you’re safe?”  
“You didn’t even know I was missing,”

His dad looked at him a moment, then down at his coffee, then back up at him. 

“Were you scared?”  
“A little,”  
“Did, did you think of us when you got scared? Did your mind go to us?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I just, gah, you’re so distant these days son, so detached, so cut off, so far away even when you do occasionally find time for us in your busy schedule, and what I’m asking, what, what I want to know is did we even cross your mind? When you were in a panic, did you think of us? When you were alone, and scared, and potentially in a really dangerous position, could you let yourself reach out to us then? Even if it was only in your thoughts, were we there?”  
“You were there, in my thoughts, you were there,” Tyler nodded gently, discomfort still writhing under his skin. 

“I know I’m an oaf to you, a big bumbling fool who likes knocking down walls and building them back up, I know I don’t have the same eye for the finer things in life as you, but I’ll always be your dad.”  
“You’re not an oaf or a fool or any of those things Pop, we’re just, we’re just different and that’s okay, I’m still happy you’re my dad, even if you know nothing about the world I inhabit, I’m still happy you’re my dad,”

“I’m so proud of you for going off and pursuing your dream-“  
“That’s not what I’ve been doing,”  
“Sorry, I mean I’m proud of you for going out and getting what you deserve,” he thought the phrasing was the flaw.   
“No, I’ve not been chasing some dream or hunting down what I think it is I’m worth, I’ve been doing the opposite, I’ve been running away and I’ve been hiding,”  
“Hiding?”  
“Yeah, I hid myself in a different world, hid myself in a world I despise surrounded by people I loathe in a job I hate,”  
“I thought you were happy with your firm?”  
“Happy? God no, I, I actually resigned Dad,”   
“Wait, you did what?”  
“Resigned, quit, handed in my notice,”   
“Hang on a second, you’re serious? When?”  
“This morning, right before I drove over here actually. I emailed my boss saying I’m done with that place and he’ll open it tomorrow and then it’ll be official,”  
“Tyler! Son, that’s, that’s,”  
“It’s amazing,” he gave him the word. 

His father broke out into a huge smile, climbing off the chair and going round to Tyler to ruffle his hair excitedly then pull him into a squeeze. 

“That’s amazing Ty, you’re amazing, I’m so proud of you son,”  
“Thanks Dad,”  
“Gah, that’s my boy, that’s my freaking boy!” He cried out exuberantly. “That job has sucked the life out of you for so long and I am so proud, so freaking proud of you, gah! Your mom always says I’ve got to let you do you and to let you figure things out for yourself, and I always tell her that I think you’re making a mistake with this corporate lark, but she’s always saying you need to carve your own path and then you’ll find your own route back to the true you and I didn’t believe her! Gah, but she was right! She was right! Come on, let’s go tell her, she’s going to be so happy for you Ty, she’s just out back at the moment,”

“Actually, Dad, uh, do you mind if I talk to her alone? You know, one on one? I’ll catch you up on everything later I promise, I just, I’d quite like to talk to her, just me and her?”  
“Heard loud and clear, don’t you worry kiddo, absolutely fine, she’s up the top of the garden - she’s got power tools on the go so you might need to shout to get her attention,”   
“This ain’t my first rodeo, I know how to distract her from the power tools, don’t worry,”  
“That’s my boy,” his grin was up to his ears as Tyler stood up and walked out of the kitchen and towards the back door. 

That’s when the nerves really hit. That’s when his palms went from clammy to sweaty and his breath went from hesitant to shaky and his vision went from narrow to spinning. He couldn’t breathe. Nevertheless he powered forwards, one unsteady step after another, forcing himself to get closer and closer to the noise. 

He could see the sparks before he could see his mother, but sure enough there she was, helmet disguising her face as she held the welding torch to a rusty piece of metal. 

“Mom! MOM! Mom hey!!”  
“Oh poppet! Hello!” She seemed just as surprised as Dad had been, flipping up the helmet and switching the torch off. “You look lovely, wow, I haven’t seen you in a t shirt in years!”

Tyler knew he wore suits a lot, but he didn’t realise it would be such a big deal for his family to see him in cotton and jeans. 

“Mom, can I, um, can I talk to you about something please?”  
“Absolutely little lamb, give me 10 seconds,” Mom nodded, taking her helmet off and dusting herself down, throwing her hair up in the quickest messy bun he’d ever seen, then beckoning him over to a bench she had made the previous year. 

Tyler was so wrapped up in the throttling anxiety that he almost walked straight into a shallow pit in the ground, filled near to the brim with sharp shards of smashed mirrors, sticking out in every angle ominously.

“What the...”  
“Do you like it? It’s our new pond,”  
“Mom, that’s a serious health hazard,”  
“I’ll tell you what’s a health hazard, information fatigue syndrome, did you know we’re exposed to 200 times more information than we were 20 years ago? We’re constantly being overloaded and it degrades our brains-“  
“Mom, speaking of degraded brains, you’ve got a hole full of glass in your backyard.” He looked across at her and she laughed a little. 

“It’s a reflection pool,”  
“Alright, very clever, but please tell me you’re at least going to blunt the edges?”  
“Why would I do that? You can’t soften the edges of real life, really life can be sharp and tear you up if you’re not careful, but if you slow down, take your time, then you can see things clearly for the first time,”

Tyler stared at the reflection pool for a moment longer. 

“When you wake up to a butchered racoon-“  
“Alright alright, I hear you Mr Sensible, one clear acrylic dome coming right up,” she caved with a chuckle and sarcastic sigh. “For the record, I was always going to add a cover,”  
“Yeh yeh, if you say so Mom,”

“So go on, what’s so important that you felt like swinging by without me needing to beg you?” She reached out and played with his hair for a moment.   
“I got stuck in an elevator Friday night, for 11 hours,”  
“Holy crap, sugar,”  
“And, uh, and, I dunno, it made me think about things, about what’s important, and yeh,”  
“And here you are,“  
“Here I am,”

“I’m so sorry that happened to you lovebug, that must have been terrify-“  
“It was good, it needed to happen, I’ve needed something to happen to kickstart the rest of my life and that moment finally came. It was good Mom,”  
“You’re thinking about the rest of your life?” She smiled hopefully.   
“Trying to, I, uh, I, I quit my job this morning.”  
“Hang on a second, you did what??”  
“I emailed my boss and handed in my resignation,”  
“Oh gracious, oh good gosh, oh wow Ty, that’s phenomenal! I’m so proud of you!” Mom kissed on his forehead, buzzing with excitement that made him smile too. 

“Do you have to work for your notice period now or are you done-done?”  
“Contractually I’m meant to work another 6 weeks but I requested in my email to be released immediately and I reckon they’ll honour that, so hopefully, fingers crossed, I’m done-done,”  
“That’s so exciting baby!”  
“I’m excited too Mom, it’s, it’s gonna be good,” 

“So what’s next? Are you gonna go full time with your startup?”  
“Nope, I spoke to Arty and he’s willing to let me be a silent partner and then over the next 2 to 5 years he’s going to buy me out, so I’m done with that too.”   
“You’re telling me you’re finished with finance?”  
“I’m finished with finance,” he announced with a small sigh of relief, knowing he still had a lot more to say before he could fully relax. 

“I think this is the best thing you’ve ever done Ty, this is the start of something new for you, something better, something good.”   
“I really hope so,”  
“You should take a year or two out before you even consider finding a new career, take the time to get to know yourself, you could go travelling!”  
“Well it’s funny you should say that actually, I, I was thinking about, um, I was thinking about moving,”  
“Moving? Moving where sugar?”  
“Chicago,”  
“Oh,” her tone fell flatter all of a sudden. 

“I’m gonna go visit first, see if I connect with it, see if it feels like it could be home, but yeah I’m pretty fixed on the idea now. I want a fresh start to figure out who I am, and a new city is the perfect opportunity to get a clean slate,”  
“Chicago’s a long way though honey, what about Cleveland? Or if you want to leave Ohio then you could look to Pittsburgh?”   
“I think I need some distance, Mom,”

She looked at her reflection pool for a minute and Tyler sat there, heart hammering. 

“Don’t isolate yourself Tyler,”  
“I won’t,”  
“You’ve said that before and done it anyway,”  
“I won’t Mom,”  
“I worry about you,”  
“I know,”  
“No, don’t start glossing, don’t switch off, don’t say what you think I want to hear - I need you to hear me,”  
“I’m hearing you, I am, I’m present and participating,”  
“So please listen to what I’m saying - I don’t want you to go to Chicago if that’s just an elaborate way for you to remove yourself from your social connections and withdraw from life until you feel you can cut off all ties so neatly that your suicide would somehow be easier for us to manage.”  
“It’s not that,” 

She reached out and held his hand; it was sweaty and he felt gross, but she didn’t seem to care as she kissed it. 

“I can get you help if you’re feeling low, I can be part of the help, you can move back in with us and we’ll-“  
“There’s a guy,”

He wanted to puke. He needed to puke. 

“I’m, I’m gay,”

He was going to puke. He was about to puke. 

“I’m really glad you told me Ty, I love you, I accept all parts of you completely, I’m proud of you, and I’m happy for you,”

He had to puke. 

“Take a second sweetheart, walk around if you need to,”

He leapt up from the bench, ripping his hand free and immediately falling down to the ground, sheltering his head and bursting into tears. It was a raw cry, an intensely painful and visceral cry that both physically and emotionally hurt as it erupted from deep within him, ripping free after all those years, all those decades, of being suppressed. 

“You’re okay, Mommy’s right here Tyler, can I touch you?”

A massive gasp came out of nowhere, followed by staggered sobs that left him just enough energy to nod, allowing his mom to swoop in and bundle him close, wrapping him in her arms like he was a child again. 

“You’re okay, you’re safe, you’re loved, you’re protected. You’re allowed to be scared, you’re allowed to be overwhelmed, you’re allowed to be inundated with confusing and conflicting emotions right now, just know that it’s all going to be fine, you hear me darling? It’s going to be okay,”

His lungs were screaming and burning and he didn’t know where he was, all he could feel was his mom swaddling him. 

“We love you no matter what,”

He believed her, he believed her. 

“Thank you so much for trusting me with such a vulnerable part of yourself, I know I can only begin to appreciate how difficult this must have been for you, but I’m proud of you for being so brave for so long, especially today,”

Tyler didn’t feel brave but he did feel loved. 

“Deep breaths honey, you’re safe,”

It was the first time his mom had ever tried to help him with his breathing. When he had panic attacks he was always alone with nobody to calm him down, and over the weekend he had found both Josh and Mom at his side. 

“You’re safe, I’ve got you, you’re safe, just breathe for me,’

The tidal wave was dispersing, whilst the emotions still washed over him, he could feel his resolve coming back and it was strange because he knew he wouldn’t be the same once he got himself back together. A piece of him was forever changed, a part of him exposed, and life would never be the same. 

Maybe that was a good thing?

This was exactly what he’d spent so long talking to Josh about, a radical change, a strive towards honesty and openness, a vital switch in the path his life was taking. It hurt in the moment, it hurt so much, but he’d put his faith in Josh’s words and somehow it felt right. 

“I’m s-sorry,” he whimpered.   
“No, absolutely not, no, I don’t accept your apology young man because you have absolutely nothing to apologise for,”  
“I lied to y-you for s-so l-long,”  
“I’m sorry that you felt you had to lie, I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel comfortable enough to come forwards sooner, I’m sorry the world is so utterly fucked that you feel this scared of being yourself - you on the other hand have nothing to say sorry for Ty,”  
“I’m sorry,”

She held him tight for a moment longer before kissing his head and then beginning to mop his face with the sleeve of her blue boiler suit. It was covered in stains already but he still felt guilty about the snot and tears he was adding to the fabric. 

“Do you feel ready to try and stand up? Should we see if we can get on the bench and try hugging up there instead? Or do you need to stay on the ground a bit longer?”  
“Up,”  
“Alright poppet, steady, steady, you got it,” she helped him onto his trembling feet and guided him back to the bench, his whole body shaking. 

“Comfy?” Mom checked, cuddling him into her side, and he nodded. “I’m so proud of you baby, I’m just so proud,”

He couldn’t quite agree with her yet, he was still trying to overcome the hurdle of accepting himself fully - pride would come later. 

“We don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready or not in the right place, you can say no, but just so Momma knows, are we thinking gay or bi or queer or not quite sure?”  
“G-gay,”  
“Okay, thank you for telling me, and Jenna? Does she know?”  
“Fa-fake,”  
“Was she ever real?”  
“No,”  
“Alright sweetie, that’s okay, Momma had a hunch about that and you know I love to be proved right,” she kissed his head again. “I love you sugarplum,”

He thought it would be like a weight off his shoulders, but it wasn’t. 

“Can I ask a few more questions?” Mom checked and he nodded, tired of keeping secrets from her. “How long have you known?”   
“M-midd-middle school,”  
“Oh cupcake, oh honey,” a small kiss found its way to the crown of his head. “Does anybody else know? Or is this just a Momma and her cub type situation?”   
“Us, a-and, and the g-guy,”  
“And the guy, is it a long term thing? Is it serious?”  
“It’s, it’s new, but, uh, m-maybe?”

“If I’m asking too much and you just want me to stop and be with you in this moment then you can tell me that,”  
“S’okay,”  
“Have there been other guys?”  
“No, I, I, uh, I k-kissed som-someone in c-college but I fr-fr-freaked and never saw him a-again,”   
“So you’re being really really brave with this new boy, aren’t you? Hmm? You’re so brave Ty,” she nuzzled him gently. “You’re so brave and I’ve never been prouder of you than I am in this moment, and that’s saying a lot because you’re my little superstar, hey?”

“I love you M-Mom,”  
“I love you too Tyler, so much,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy gap day everyone <3 
> 
> Hope you’re all well x


	6. Chapter 6

“...and then we went inside and my dad took one look at us and just said ‘so I take it he finally came out’ and we all laughed and then he gave me the biggest hug and I sobbed and sobbed and then we ordered pizza - not from Pablo’s I promise,”  
“I’m so happy for you Tyler, so happy,”

“I couldn’t have done this without you Josh, not only the conversation but the entire process of quitting my job and making the choice to pursue what really matters to me and ultimately changing my life. You’ve changed my life,”  
“I can’t take credit, this was all you, you found the strength to take all the scary steps, I merely suggested those steps be taken,”  
“Don’t downplay J,” he had a nickname for him already and Josh couldn’t help smiling to himself, “today was the best day of my life and it happened because of you, so thank you,”  
“You’re welcome,” 

“Sorry, sorry, I just realised I’ve been talking for like half an hour, sorry-“  
“No no it’s nice, I like hearing you talk about it,”  
“Still though, don’t you have that family dinner tonight?”  
“Yeh, but they can wait,”   
“I can’t decide whether that’s you being sweet and wanting to talk to me, or that’s you putting off having that chat with your parents,”  
“Lil bit of both?” He admitted with a somewhat uncomfortable laugh. 

“I did my scary thing so you can definitely do your scary thing because you’re ten times bolder than I am,”  
“I’m not, I’m absolutely not, but you’re right, I gotta emulate some of that Tyler fierceness and dig deep,”   
“You got this,”  
“I got this,”  
“Call me later and let me know how it went?”  
“Course, go enjoy hanging out with your folks, go be the real you, no hold backs, for the first time with them; I’ll speak to you later,”  
“Bye Josh, you got this,”  
“Bye Ty,”

He slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket and sighed. 

He was proud of Tyler, incredibly proud. 

He was scared of going into his parents’ house, incredibly scared. 

He’d been stood at the end of their drive, pacing the same 5 steps back and forth whilst hearing Tyler’s tale of his extraordinary day, genuinely delighted for his new companion but always with half his mind on what was awaiting him up the path. 

Knowing he’d been stalling for too long and knowing they’d begin to panic again if he was too late, Josh forced himself to head through the gate of the white picket fence and up to their front door. He had a key however he chose to ring the doorbell, standing on the porch and rocking on his toes uncomfortably. 

“Aha, there he is, we were just saying what are the odds you got trapped in two elevators this weekend? Come in come in,” his sister Ashley opened the door with a beaming smile.   
“Sorry I’m late, phonecall,”  
“No problemo, Abbie’s cooking and you know her and schedules aren’t exactly tight, you didn’t miss much,” she lead him into the main living area. 

It was cramped and he instantly felt claustrophobic. 

The whole family had gathered for a Sunday roast, meaning both his parents were there, his brother was there, his brother’s girlfriend was there, his sister and her husband were there, and their 5 year old and two 2 year old twins were there, and his other sister was back in the kitchen. Not only was it a lot of people but the children took up half the floor with their clutter of abandoned toys, and it felt very very hot in there. 

“Uncle Joshie!” Ellie, his oldest niece, cried out happily when she saw him and came sprinting across the room, throwing herself into his extended arms.   
“Hey little missy, oh wow, I love this shirt of yours, isn’t this grown up?”  
“Mommy did getted it for me!” She boasted proudly, then plunged her face into the crook of his neck and he gave her a squeeze, imagining his own little girl all those miles away. 

“Joshie, Joshie, Mommy did say you are finding Charlotte soon!”  
“That’s right, I’m going to see Charlotte next Saturday,”  
“Can’d you say hello??”  
“I’ll say hello to her from her fave cousin, course I will princess, course I will,” it didn’t matter to Ellie that they’d never met, she was very proud of her cousin in Chicago and brought her up at every opportunity.   
“See sweetheart, I told you he would, didn’t I? Now let Uncle Joshie say a proper hello to everyone and then you can play later,” Ashley took her daughter back with a smile. 

Jordan was the first to catch his eye. 

“Hey,”  
“Hey you frickin asshole,” he muttered under his breath whilst pulling Josh into an extremely tight hug. “Scared me shitless you punk,”  
“I told ya, I’m doing all your Pablo’s shifts for the next month to make it up to you.”  
“He fired you, he’s not letting you back under my name anytime soon,”  
“That’s for me to worry about,” 

After Debby’s firm instruction, Josh had called his little brother and the pair of them had cried their way through a brutal conversation. The younger confessed just how worried he was about Josh, who in turn had been as honest as he could about his state of mind, and the pair had come up with their interpretation of a master plan to improve things. Part of the plan involved the family dinner, and more importantly Josh talking to his parents at that meet-up, but Josh knew it had done very little to soothe Jordan’s heightened concerns. 

“After this, you and me go grab a milkshake?” Josh let go and ruffled Jordan’s hair.   
“Wishing the time away so soon?”  
“Making time for my favourite brother,”  
“Your only brother, jackass,” he shook his head with a small smile. “We can get shakes, on you, but you can be the one to tell Kaylee she ain’t invited,”  
“For real, that gonna be an issue?”  
“Nah, she heard me balling like a baby on the phone at ridiculous o clock Friday night, she knows what’s what, if I say we need space then she’ll be a-okay,”  
“Legend,”  
“That’s my girl,”

Josh didn’t know his brother’s girlfriend all that well, but knew she made him incredibly happy and there was nothing more he really needed to know in order to approve. 

“Hey Kaylee,” Josh waved at the redhead, sat with one of the twins, and she waved back. “Hey Andrew,” his brother-in-law was next on the list, chasing after the other twin, and he also waved back.   
“Hey pal,”

“Am I alright to sit here Mom?” He approached his mother, who was sat on her corner of the couch, wearing her favourite cardigan that she always wore, holding a ball of soft wool that she was anxiously fraying with her long yellowing nails, a wild look to her eyes that Josh knew well but couldn’t trust.   
“A-Alright to sit there? Oh, oh, uh, oh yes, yes yes, yes alright to sit there, yes, yes yes very good, very, very alright for Josh to sit there, yes yes,”  
“Thank you,” 

Dad was sat in the armchair adjacent, scooted forwards on the cushion so he could be attentive and aware of his wife. Abbie cooking was a bad sign. If Mom was steady then Dad would be in charge of the kitchen, but his younger sister had filled the role which must have meant Dad felt he needed to be by his wife’s side, which didn’t bode well for Josh’s hopes of a harder conversation at some point that evening. 

“How you doing son?”  
“I’m good, yeah, I’m good, secretly loving getting the sack because it means I don’t have to be lugging pizzas around anymore, so having a weekend pizza-free has been pretty darn wonderful.”  
“My boys deliver pizzas,”  
“That’s right Momma, that’s right, but I don’t work there no more, they asked me to leave because I got trapped in that elevator and couldn’t complete my orders, so now it’s just Jordy,” he tried to explain to her.   
“My boys deliver pizzas,”  
“Jordy does, yeah,” it wasn’t worth getting her upset over minor details like plurals. 

“You could sue them you know, wrongful dismissal,” Dad suggested.   
“I could, but it sounds like a lotta hassle in a town with a lotta other pizza joints,” Josh shrugged.   
“Point of principle though, they can’t punish you for something beyond the realm of your control,”  
“I really don’t mind, Dad,” 

“Where’s Sue?”  
“Sue? She’s probably in her house sweetie,” Dad comforted his wife, then smiled at Josh with that knowing look in his eyes. 

“Those two are terrible, terrible terrible twos, terrible two are in their terrible twos, terrible terrible terrible two.” She pointed a shaky accusatory finger at each of the twins.   
“They just want to be independent but don’t have the skills to actually manage by themselves so they get frustrated, but they’re not terrible Mom,” Josh knew he was far from a parenting expert, but made an attempt at defending the twins anyway.   
“They’re terrible! Terrible terrible terrible! Terrible two, two terrible twins, terrible terrible two!”  
“Mom,” Ashley said gently, “they can hear you,”  
“That one especially! He’s really terrible! Terrible terrible terrible!” She started standing up to get her finger even closer to Alex’s little face and so Dad stood up to intervene. 

“Come on sweetheart, let’s go check on Abbie, see how dinner is coming along?”   
“Joshie, isn’t he terrible?!”  
“I’ll come too, we’ll go together, that’ll be nice, hey?” Josh stood as well and looped his arm around his mother’s, guiding her away from the children that were pushing her into a tizzy. She brought her wool with her, clutching onto it harshly. 

Thankfully the walk to the kitchen wasn’t far, but the distance was enough for it to be significantly quieter and the childish chattering was barely audible to keep testing and testing her. 

“Josh! Hey handsome,” Abbie glided across the kitchen, potato masher in hand, and kissed him on the cheek.   
“Hey, this smells amazing,”  
“Well I’m using Momma’s recipes so of course it does,” she stroked Mom’s hair out of her face for her then kissed her cheek too, and Dad leant in and gave his youngest daughter a peck of her own. 

“Do you mind if we sit and watch for a moment?” Dad asked, knowing the answer as he helped his wife up onto a barstool.   
“You know how terrible they get! Don’t you Abigail, don’t you?? Those twins! So so terrible, terrible terrible twins, so terrible, terrible,”   
“They can be cheeky monkeys sometimes, you’re definitely onto something Momma,” She appeased with a big smile whilst mashing her spuds. 

“Did you add buttermilk and chives yet? Buttermilk and chives yet? You, you gotta add the buttermilk and chives!”  
“In she goes,” Abbie had already chopped the herbs and brushed them in, then poured in a cup of buttermilk like Mom prescribed and carried on mashing. 

“Don’t mash too much! Rustic, rustic is good, yes yes, rustic is good, smooth is too smooth, lumpy is too lumpy, go rustic - rustic Abigail!”  
“Why don’t you come gimme a hand?”  
“Yes yes,” Mom abandoned her frayed wool and rushed straight over to the stove. “Here, give it to me, it’s like this,”

“Sweetheart, should we give you and Abbie some space to cook?” Dad checked in.   
“Yes yes, go, Abigail no, Abigail is cooking with me, I’ll show her, I’ll show her, yes yes, Josh and Chris go, Abigail watch - Abigail, watch!”  
“I’m watching, you’ve got my full attention Momma,”

Abbie gave them a discrete thumbs up to confirm she was alright to balance dinner and caring for her mother, and so the men started heading back to the rest of the family when Josh realised it might be the only available time to speak to his father in private. 

“Actually, Dad, do you mind if we go talk about something quickly? Just you and me?”  
“Ooh, sounds ominous, course we can kiddo, bedroom okay?”  
“Bedroom’s great,”  
  
Dad lead the way up the stairs of his home, still as nimble as ever as he climbed, then turned the corner at the top and opened the door to his pristine bedroom. The bed had close to a dozen perfectly placed throw cushions and Josh couldn’t resist flopping down on the perfectly made duvet cover. 

“She’s bad today, huh?”  
“Pretty bad, Ashley brought the kids round about an hour ago so she’s actually been tolerating them really well considering how quick her patience runs thin, but she’s having a bad weekend and she’s getting tired now. Friday had her pretty shook up,”  
“You told her about me being missing?”   
“Couldn’t keep it from her. Jordan raised the alarm thinking you’d done something daft and it had the whole family acting up, panic stations. Abbie came over here searching for you in tears, I was calling up everyone I could think of, we almost had the police out - Mom got caught up in the chaos and you know that’s far from her strong suit,” Dad laid down next to him, hands stretched over his beer belly. 

“I’m, I’m really sorry Dad,”  
“Nah don’t be silly,”  
“No, I’m really sorry,”  
“For what?”  
“For all of this, for going missing, for being so unstable that everyone instantly presumed it was gonna be bad, for not helping out with Mom enough, for everything,”  
“You don’t have to apologise for any of that, not at all.” 

Josh hoped his dad was going to continue that line of thought, to expand it into a conversation, but after a few too many seconds of silence, Josh knew he had to be the one to keep it going. 

“I think I’m going to make some changes in my life,”  
“Okay, can I pry into what that may entail?”  
“I think, maybe, uh, I’m thinking of starting therapy?”  
“Are you struggling at the moment?”  
“V’been struggling for a while,”  
“May I ask what that looks like for you?”  
“Panic attacks, lots and lots of panic attacks, paralysing anxiety over the smallest of decisions, constant thoughts about less than positive things, um, constant thoughts about hurting Charlotte.”

“Are you self harming again?”  
“No,”  
“Okay, good, but I’m sorry the rest is getting on top of you Josh. Of course your mother and I will support you in getting therapy, I, um, honestly I can only really afford to fund you seeing a good therapist maybe once a month, or a cheaper counsellor slightly more often, but-“  
“I’ll pay,”  
“You’re my son and I want to do this for you-“  
“I’ll pay Dad, really, I insist, that’s not why I’m telling you, I want to pay,”

Dad sighed, clearly feeling like a disappointment for not being able to find the cash. 

“How are you going to afford that? You know Mom’s therapist is $150 per session, right? That’s nearly 4 grand a year for bimonthly appointments, and let’s not get started on her prescription costs if they decide to recommend you’re put on meds as well. You’ve been working 2 jobs and barely been able to keep yourself fed, what with all the child support Debby gets from you, how are you gonna manage now you’re down to one? I’m not trying to put you off therapy, I think therapy is a great idea, but at least accept some contribution towards it? Please?”  
“It’s fine, I promise,”

“Explain to me how it’s going to be fine?” He couldn’t let it go.   
“The guy in the elevator with me, he’s rich, like multimillionaire rich, and he offered me-“  
“Joshua don’t even consider whoring yourself out for therapy, it’s only gonna cause you even more issues-“  
“Dad I’m not whoring myself out! Jesus! He was just really friendly and sweet and we were talking about Charlotte and he said he wanted to help, so he’s gonna give me money for her college tuition-“  
“Where’s the catch? There’s gotta be a catch,”  
“There’s not,”

He sighed disapprovingly. 

“This doesn’t feel right to me, but I’m not trying to discourage you from taking opportunities presented to you. You know I’m just looking out for ya, right?”  
“I know, Dad.”  
“At the end of the day, it’s your life, it’s your body, it’s your bank balance, and you’ve got to do what feels right. I could try exerting some kinda influence over you if I really wanted, but I trust you to make good choices and it’s up to you what you do with that trust,”  
“I’d like your advice still, please? I want to know your opinion before I accept anything,”  
“On the money situation?”  
“Yeh,”  
“How much is this fella giving you?”  
“He offered a 100,”  
“Thousand? Jeepers Josh,”  
“I know right? But I was looking into that fancy ballet school, the one in New York, and that would barely cover two years’ fees, it’s the same as if she wants to go to conventional college,”  
“I do wonder about the state of this country sometimes, a life of debt just for schooling,” he sighed again. 

“If the money is going to improve Charlotte’s life, if it’s hopefully going to fund your therapy, if it’s going to make real waves for you and your little girl then I can see why you want to take it. At the same time if you’re hoping to have a continued relationship with this guy, in any sense of the word, then maybe it’s worth considering how wise it is to have a power imbalance between you? Because you’ll always owe him something if you take the money, and that’s a tricky position to be in for a plethora of reasons. There are other ways to navigate the situation, Charlie could get a scholarship, we could find you therapy through a charitable organisation or online or something - we could cope without the money. It’s up to you,”  
“I think I’m gonna take it,”  
“Then I support you fully,”

He smiled at his dad, but the smile was tired. 

“Can I ask a question Joshua?”  
“Hit me.”  
“Earlier, when you said you get bad thoughts, like thoughts about hurting Charlotte, what did you mean by that?”  
“I get really in my head about, well, everything. I overthink every way I impact her life to the extent that it par alyses me - I worry I speak to her the wrong way, or I pick her up wrong, or I’m feeding her the wrong things, I worry I’m in her life too much, I worry I’m not in her life enough, I worry I’m passing on too many of my habits, I worry I’m not present enough for her to even pick up any of my habits, I worry my genes are going to cause her issues, I worry-“  
“You just worry, not, not to put that down, but you mean you worry about hurting her and you’re trying to avoid that, not, um, you, you don’t think about actively hurting her?”  
“No, absolutely not, no.”

Josh realised he should have remembered who he was speaking to and phrased that differently. 

“You know this one time, I’ve never told anybody this, but this one time I caught your momma standing over your crib with a smashed gin bottle hovering just above your face, and she was sobbing and begging you to give her one reason not to do it.”  
“How old was I?”  
“7 weeks 3 days. Remember it clear as day.”

He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t remember that incident, but there were plenty of others that he could. 

“One time she picked me up from school, I think it was second grade, and the teacher asked to speak to her and said that I was falling behind on my spellings and so could she please work on them with me over the weekend, and Mom looked her straight in the face and said spellings weren’t important, they should be teaching me life skills so she could have me out of the house sooner.”  
“Bet the teacher loved that one,”  
“Surprised she didn’t call CPS,”

“We did have CPS called on us Josh, we were an open case with them for about 2 years,”  
“We were?” Josh frowned.   
“Yeh, do you remember Miss Anthea?”  
“Miss Anthea, the lady who was training to be a teacher?”  
“The lady who came and monitored Momma and me playing with you one afternoon a month for 2 years to ensure you weren’t being neglected like all your teachers suspected when you told them your stories of Momma,”  
“Oh, I, I never clocked that.”   
“She was an okay lady really, little stringent but I suppose that’s a good thing in her line of work; you automatically assumed she was a teacher because she liked going by Miss, and nobody had the heart to correct you.”

He remembered Miss Anthea quite well, what with her low bun and her puffy padded shouldered suits. He supposed it made sense that she was monitoring them - that’s why she always carried that little notebook with her. 

It felt strange having a childhood memory distorted by facts. 

“They closed our file once they could see I was able to look after you and Ashley, and once we got Momma into a better routine with her meds, so it was all okay in the end,”  
“Can I tell you the main reason I wanted to talk to you?”  
“Of course,”  
“I want to confront Mom, not, not confront, I just, I want to have a conversation with her, maybe try, um, try asking some questions so I can finally have some answers after all these years?”  
“What kind of questions?”  
“Why couldn’t you love me?”   
“Josh,”  
“No, there’s more, I want to know what did I do wrong? What part of me is it that made you start hating me so much? How can I change that? How can I become what you always wished I was? What do I need to do to make you love me? Do you think you’ll ever be able to love me or will you always look at me and see the baby who ruined your life?”

“I think therapy’s a good idea,” Dad sighed heavily.   
“I wanna talk to Mom too,”  
“What do you want her to say? Because I guarantee you she’s not gonna say it kiddo. What will happen is you’ll upset her and she’ll get flustered and she might say some more hurtful stuff and it might go beyond that and she might get really sick again, and for what, hey? Just so you can get it off your chest?”  
“It’s been on my chest for 30 years, Dad.”

Dad looked away for a moment, rubbing his eyes and sighing again. 

“I’ve always tried my best to shelter you, to protect you, and I’m sorry so much still slipped through the net.”  
“It’s not your fault, you did and continue to do your best in a tricky situation. I appreciate it can’t be easy for you to see your wife like this,”  
“When it’s just me and her, no kids, no grandkids, it’s almost like the old days again now. Her therapy and her meds have done amazing things and when we’re alone, she completely relaxes and it’s like the same Laura I met in high school is back. She just slips when she’s overwhelmed, and a meal like tonight after an event like Friday, it’s a recipe for decline.”

“On Friday, was she worried about me?”  
“Of course she was Josh, she was hysterical, screaming for her Joshie,” 

He took a moment, trying to gather himself. 

“I imagine she was hoping I’d died.”  
“No, no Josh, all those things she said when you were little, all the nasty things that left her mouth about you, they were never a reflection of her heart. She loves you, she does, and so much of her spite towards you comes from a place of fear. She would rather you passed away than she accidentally did something wrong, and I know that sounds backwards-“  
“No, I feel the same with Charlotte sometimes. I’m so scared she’s going to grow up and struggle because I’ve failed her as a father that sometimes I wish she didn’t exist.”

“We’ll get you some good therapy, find someone who can open your eyes to what an amazing dad you are to that little one,”  
“It’s the cycle though, isn’t it? Mom struggles and so I struggle and so she’s going to struggle.”  
“Not necessarily,”  
“But probably,”  
“No, I mean Mom struggled with your siblings and they’re all okay,”  
“I, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Dad gave him a worried look. 

“Jordan?”  
“Jordan.” Josh nodded.   
“Alright, I’ll talk to him.”  
“Thank you,”

“Look, Josh, I know there’s a lot to unpack and I’m sure you’ve got lots of questions about why your mom is the way she is and why she feels the way she does, especially surrounding you, but I’m not so sure that confrontation is the right way to go about it. We’ll get you started in therapy, and after some solid work we’ll see about getting your therapist in touch with Mom’s, and discuss how a mediation might work, but it all needs to be in controlled and steady movements, alright? Not just you walking up to Mom and expecting her to be able to answer those questions of yours. I appreciate you deserve answers, but I also need you to appreciate your mom’s sick and she might not have the answers, and that’s something that therapy will hopefully help you come to terms with,”  
“Yeah,”

“I know you said you wanted to change your life, and therapy will do that, it’s just going to be in really small increments that add up over time, rather than the sudden resolution that I’m guessing you wanted from a conversation with Mom,”  
“Yeah no, I, um, I think I was putting too much weight on that conversation when you’re right, I need to do it sensibly,”  
“Exactly,”  
“But I’m still seeking a big change, so, um, so what would you think about me maybe moving to Chicago?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey,
> 
> Sorry this is late by a few hours, I’ve had a pretty crappy day tbh - for those of you who are new, I’m inpatient in a hospital in England where the law allows my medical team to make all decisions about my care and today in my ward round I had quite a few of my privileges stripped which is shit, especially since it’s my 20th birthday in 2 weeks and I don’t know whether I’ll be allowed to go home for a quick visit or not anymore.
> 
> Buut on a better note, today I finally treated myself to Spotify Premium. After like 3 years of enduring ads, I decided I deserved something nice.  
> Also I was hoping this fic would get 400 hits total by the end of uploading all 8 chapters, so have hit it already is a really nice feeling 
> 
> Please let me know if you’re enjoying this fic, it means a lot,  
> Thanks  
> Maisie x


	7. Epilogue Part I

“Oh they you are, I was just about to text and ask where you’d got to,”  
“Hey handsome,” Tyler kissed him quickly, sitting down next to him. “Sorry I took forever, the party planners overran and then I had to stop for gas, but I’m here now,”  
“You’re here now and that’s what matters,” Josh kissed him again, his hand on Tyler’s thigh. 

“How’s our angel doing?”  
“Amazing,”  
“Course she is,” Tyler smiled warmly as he looked through the large glass wall of the observation room above the main dance hall. 

Josh had lost count of how many times he’d sat and watched his little girl dance from that room, however he wasn’t even close to sick of it. So many parents went across the street to grab a bite to eat, but Josh made sure to watch every second from the start of the warm up to the end of the cool down, and it was made extra special when Tyler could come and join him. 

“The decorations look awesome so get your expectations high, she’s gonna lose her mind,”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah, definitely the right call going for that company, our house looks like something off Pinterest; those balloons inside the balloons look really cool and all the bunting and wall hangings are adorable, the hippo cutouts and balloons they’ve made are perfect, and there are officially more fairy lights in our home right now than I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s amazing, really, it’s awesome,”  
“Aw I’m glad, I’m pumped to see it,”  
“Walking around I felt like I was in a fairy castle and I’m a grown ass man, so Charlotte might explode,”   
“Bless her,” Josh chuckled at the idea, then sighed. 

“Pick up was difficult earlier, so it’ll be nice that she’s coming home to something a bit special,”  
“I’m sorry babe, she okay?” Ty frowned.   
“She was absolutely fine at first, she was buzzing actually, and then once I said it was probably time to make a move, Debby burst into tears and started hugging her and saying all this stuff about how she was waving goodbye to her 9 year old forever and how she’s always been the first person Charlotte’s seen on her birthday for her entire life, then Charlotte got swept up in the emotion and started crying too, and yeah, messy,”

“Do you think it was just pregnancy hormones on Debby’s part? Or do you think she’s legitimately upset about being away from her?”  
“Bit of both - she’s 8 and a half months preggo for God’s sake so there’s no way that’s not having some impact, but I think there was some genuine hurt and fear in there too. Her baby girl is turning 10 and she won’t be there, and that’s potentially the start of a whole new stage of their relationship and the end of an era that she can never get back. Charlie’s growing up and soon the baby will be here and that’s going to inevitably put a little more distance in their relationship as she learns to split her time between three kids, and before you know it your little one’s flown the nest. I could totally understand Debs getting emotional about that,”   
“Yeah, that’s tough,”

“I told Debby that we would FaceTime her before breakfast tomorrow so she can say happy birthday and that calmed her down a bit, and then singing along to the Glee album on the drive here did the trick with Charlie,”  
“Okay, and if either of them get upset again then we can always invite Debby over or quickly pop Charlie back, it’s not an issue. Birthdays are meant to be happy occasions so if we have to adapt the plan to keep them happy then that’s alright,”   
“Exactly,”

“And how you feeling about your lil pudding turning the big 1-0?” Tyler took his hand.   
“I’m not currently feeling that fazed by it to be honest? Like if I stop and think about how much has changed in the last decade then yeah, it’s a little odd, but these past few years getting to spend real time with her and feel like I actually know her and play a role in her life, be her dad rather than being a random visitor once a month, yeah, it’s been special. I’m more excited to think how close we’re going to get over the next 10 years,”  
“Yeah, that’s a good perspective,”

The dancers had moved from the barre and started leaping across the floor in unison in a move Josh knew was the Pas de Chat. Ballet was hardly his area of expertise, but he tried to pay attention because he knew it was important to Charlotte. 

“Before you know it we’re gonna have a teenage daughter,”  
“Should we start prepping already? Double the data cap on our broadband? Buy a bulk load of zit cream? Maybe think about moving to a tiny lil rural town with 0 stinky boys?” Tyler laughed.   
“God, what’s that show we watch? You know, the one with the guys?”  
“The one with the guys? Wow Josh, you mean Doomsday Preppers?”  
“Hey, you got it didn’t you?? But yeah, we sound like Doomsday Preppers - bracing for the dreaded teen years,”

The fathers laughed, Tyler playing with Josh’s hand, holding it, tracing his palm loosely with his fingertip. 

“She’s gonna be the best teenager,” Josh decided.   
“Oh just the best,”  
“She’s gonna respect us,”  
“She’s gonna listen to our advice,”  
“She’s not gonna break any rules,”  
“She’s gonna tell us everything,”   
“She’s gonna ask our permission for everything,”  
“She’s-“  
“By the sounds of it she’s gonna run rings round the two of you, Lord bless your naïveté,” a eavesdropping mother sat a few seats over from them inserted herself into the conversation with a hearty chuckle, and the couple joined in.   
“Pray for us?” Josh pleaded.   
“You bet,” she flashed a smile. 

“She’s not even 10 yet, we’ve still got a few years of peace,”  
“N-uh, only a few months till we get another little monster come a knockin,”  
“You know I went on the portal website thing this morning to register that we got our fire safety certificate and it notified me that we’ve completed 51% of our adoption homestudy,” Tyler shared excitedly.   
“God, is that all? I feel like I’ve done nothing but paperwork and classes and interviews and more paperwork for this agency over the past year of my life, and you’re telling me we’re only half way done?”  
“I’m telling you, Mr Grumpy Pants, that we’re half way through the hurdles to get our little baby,”  
“You know I’m only joking, don’t you?” Josh clung onto Tyler’s hand and squeezed.   
“I know,”  
“We’re so close to having them home with us,” he couldn’t stop grinning and neither could Tyler as they pressed their heads together. “We’re so close,”

“I now realise having being awarded our fire safety certificate, we immediately filled our house top to bottom with paper streamers and millions of lights, so there’s a very real chance we’re gonna get home to a roaring blaze and have to start again with a massive chunk of our home study,”  
“Oh shush you,” Josh shut him up with a kiss. 

  
“Can I open them yet???”  
“Almost, almost,” Tyler kept his hands over Charlotte’s eyes as they shuffled forwards through the hall, nearly arriving in the living room. 

“Alright honey, 3, 2, 1, open!” Josh counted down until the moment Tyler moved his hands away and allowed their daughter to see the first of many surprises they’d arranged for her.   
“Aaaahhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhh! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh, Dad, Ty, look!! Ahh!” Charlotte immediately began to scream, dashing around as she tried to soak it all in. 

Tyler walked to be beside Josh and slipped his arm around his waist, binding them at the hip.   
“Do you think she likes it?” He whispered.   
“Hard to tell,” Josh laughed. 

“Look! Look Tyler! Look!” She squealed at a pitch almost inaudible to the men as she discovered the hippopotamus shaped balloons in one corner, her favourite animal, then raced over to the pastel toned streamers framing the photo wall with her name spelt out, before finding the fresh bouquets of pink peonies that were placed around the room and also the rest of the house, getting more and more excited as she explored. 

Josh kissed Tyler on the cheek with a big mwah sound. 

“Da-ad!” Charlotte couldn’t even finish the word before suddenly she started to cry, and immediately the pair swooped in, panicked, Josh picking her up. 

“Sweetheart talk to me, what’s wrong?”  
“It’s s-so n-nice! Th-tha-ank-k y-you!”  
“Oh baby, oh darling,” he squeezed her close to his chest, hand on the back of her head, simply holding her for a moment. “You deserve this, you hear me? You’re our big girl and you’re amazing, Ty and I are so incredibly proud of you, and we want you to have the best 10th birthday ever, you hear me? We did this because we love you,”  
“I l-love it D-Dad,” she whispered adorably.   
“And I love you,” he smiled, wiping a few tears off her little cheeks. 

Josh knew his daughter was similar to him in his tendency to get overwhelmed, but it made for a nice change to have her overwhelmed with joy, and it was made even more special to know it was him and Tyler who’d brought her that feeling. 

“Charlie, do you wanna come with me and I’ll show you something else really cool?” Tyler suggested after a minute.  
“O-Okay,” she nodded so Josh put her feet back on the ground and she reached out to hold Tyler’s hand instead.   
“Let’s see what we’ve got round here, hey?”

He followed the pair as Tyler lead them out the living room and into the hall, and Charlotte gasped. The entire ceiling was lit up by strings of fairy lights, and all the walls were covered by pastel strips of full length fringe. 

“Ty!”   
”The entire house is decorated for you sweet girl,”  
“Even m-my bedroom?”   
“Especially your bedroom,”  
“Can I go see?? Please?” She was getting her hyper energy back again.   
“Shall we go together?”  
“Yeah!” Charlotte twisted round to make sure Josh was following, and flashed a massive toothy grin when she saw him. 

Josh loved the way Tyler encouraged her, loved the way he matched his pace to hers perfectly as she began to run through the hippo/pastel themed house towards the stairs, loved the way he held her hand, loved the way he cared for her. He loved the way Tyler loved her as his own. 

“Ty, Daddy, look!” Her finger pointed towards their chandelier which had somehow been threaded beautifully with pink peonies, a feat that Josh was incredibly impressed by, considering it was in the centre of three stories worth of spiral stairs. 

Even Josh’s breath was taken away as he spent a little time soaking in all the details. Not only were there flowers in the crystals, but also the entire banister of the swooping staircase had been meticulously threaded with fairy lights and pastel ribbons and the occasional collection of balloon hippos, and it was that personalised touch that made it so beautiful. 

He joined Charlotte in being overwhelmed by the decorations, but he was also struck with a sudden appreciation for the beautiful house he’d been blessed to live in, and the beautiful souls who joined him in calling it home. 

“Last one to Charlie’s room has a stinky butt!” He declared and made a surge for the stairs, letting his daughter sneak in front of him but staying hot on her heels. 

“Pass me the, uh, the thingy?”  
“Incoming,” Tyler could read his mind and pulled the jade roller from the shelf and tossed it to Josh in bed, who caught it and started rolling it over his face, back and forth. 

“Still not convinced this does anything, it just feels so damn nice,”   
“It’s relaxing though, right?”  
“Uh huh,”  
“So it doesn’t really matter whether it does all the lymphatic drainage stuff they claim, if it helps you relax and wind down ready for sleep then it’s worth having around,”  
“Says the sucker who paid 60 bucks for it,” he chuckled, moving from his left cheek to his forehead.   
“I’d pay a million more if it made your sleep even a fraction better,”

“I’ve not been so bad lately,”  
“Yeah you seem better rested, like you always used to be up a dozen times during the night and you haven’t been doing that as much, and you used to wake up and immediately continue yawning but now you’re waking up slightly more restored,” Tyler noted, working on his evening skin care regime from the en-suite.   
“I think I am, you’re right. All the stress of getting the adoption paperwork completed is starting to ease off as it seems more and more realistic that we’re going to get it all submitted by the deadline, and school has been way less stressful since I talked to them about placements, so yeah, I’m feeling a lot calmer in general,”  
“That’s what I like to hear, babycakes,”

Josh relaxed against his pillows, smiling to himself, watching for the occasional flash of Tyler as he walked around the bathroom, completing his evening routine which took three times as long as Josh’s. 

“Budge,” he finally emerged, immediately accusing Josh of hogging the bed, despite the fact they both knew full well that Tyler was a starfish sleeper and would own 80% of the mattress within the hour. Josh didn’t mind though, secretly he loved when his husband snuck closer in the night. 

“How you feeling about tomorrow? Feeling any typa way about your family coming?” Tyler hopped under the covers with him, putting his hand on Josh’s chest as he turned to face him.   
“Only good things. My dad texted me earlier just to confirm the plan, and he said Mom’s feeling pretty peaceful about the whole thing. She’s most nervous about the flight, but that’s actually a good thing because it means she’s not feeling too daunted about the party,”  
“There’s no pressure on her. If she can’t hack the busyness of the party then she’s here till Tuesday night and I’m sure Debby will make an exception from the plan to let Charlie spend some time with her grandparents away from the hustle and bustle,”  
“Yeah, either way it will be fine,” Josh was reassuring himself as well as Tyler. 

“When was the last time our entire families got together like this?”  
“Uhh, we had your parents plus all my siblings up for Charlie’s dance showcase last month, then everyone was here except my parents when we announced our paper pregnancy, but I reckon, gah, the last time everyone was here at once was probably our wedding, right?”  
“Wow, that long hey?” Tyler was surprised.   
“Oh, except when we had that big cookout in Columbus at Ashley’s, everyone was there apart from Charlotte,”  
“Doesn’t count if little lady’s not there,”  
“Agreed,” Josh smiled, moving the jade device over to Tyler’s arm and rolling it up and down between his band tattoos smoothly. 

“My mom’s super excited about seeing your mom again,” Tyler confessed with a little smile. “She keeps pestering me, asking when am I next gonna see Laura, when am I next gonna see Laura?”  
“Feeling’s mutual, she loves her too,”  
“Maybe we could try setting them up on a coffee date when they’re back in Columbus? How’d you think your mom would handle that?” Tyler checked.   
“Honestly I’m not sure, like she doesn’t have any friends at all and I don’t recall her ever having friends at any point in my life; she likes my dad’s company and that’s about it, but I’ll definitely float the idea her way - it might be easier if my dad tags along to make sure she’s settled and feels secure, but if it’s a success then I’m hopeful she’ll have a go at working up to just Kelly-Laura time, we’ll see.” Josh was eager to help his mom form what he knew could be a beautiful friendship, however he knew not to put too much expectation on his sick mother. 

“My mom will understand if she can’t manage it, she just keeps telling me how much she loves her energy. You know what she’s like, always searching for her next muse,”   
“You think she wants to make some art about my mom?” Josh was strangely touched by it.   
“I think she’s intrigued by her in the best sense, and when she gets intrigued is when she creates some of her coolest stuff because she loves striving to understand something foreign to her and channeling that exploration into her work.”  
“It’s so interesting, I wanna try talking to her more about her process tomorrow, see if she can inspire me to have a crack maybe,”

“After I came out to her and we opened up the dialogue about internalised homophobia, it was almost like she got possessed, she was just pumping out these stunning tortured pieces that spoke to me so intimately that it’s almost indescribable. It’s not like she appropriated my pain or claimed it as her own, it was that she managed to capture it in a way I never could, and it helped, it genuinely helped, because I felt seen for the first time by her - or by anybody except you for that matter. I get that not everybody wants to go through that process of being probed until they’re known, but the rewards can be breathtaking, so if your mom is interested then mine certainly is. On the other hand if you think just coffee would be better then I’m sure my mom’s up for that,”  
“Coffee’s probably a safer place to start, but who knows where they’ll end up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double length chapter coming Friday for our finale ♥️


	8. Epilogue Part II

Tyler was a professional cake decorator. 

After leaving finance and Columbus behind, he’d spent a couple of months just enjoying the new found freedom of authenticity, bouncing from one hobby to the next like a pinball. He’d trialled squash and improv and archery and fishing and origami and growing vegetables and tennis and astronomy and makeup and embroidery and chess club and genealogy and Spanish classes and Kung fu and Rubik’s cubes and any other random flyer that blew his way, and as much as he enjoyed every single one for different reasons, it wasn’t until he’d helped Charlotte bake a cake for Josh’s birthday that something inside him truly clicked. 

Within a week he was working in a cake shop, and by the end of the year he owned his own establishment, Tyler’s Tiers of Joy, and had hired 2 members of staff. 

They did all sorts of events, wedding cakes and birthday cakes and gender reveal cakes and graduation cakes and anniversary cakes and retirement cakes and every other cake in between. They sold their cake offcuttings with a dollop of icing for a dollar, then on the other end of the spectrum the most expensive cake they’d ever created was a 3 grand 5ft hand sculpted classic car for a gentleman who’d plastered it all over social media, and now Tyler had more and more requests for exuberant cakes filling his inbox every single day, and he was on the hunt for a third employee already. 

Despite the high demand, Tyler had cordoned off a chunk of his week to work on their daughter’s 10th birthday cake - her favourite animal, a hippo. Even though the family get together was only for 21 people, a very small number when it was considered that Tyler regularly catered weddings for with 10 times that many guests, Tyler decided to go all out. 

Using her favourite sponge flavour, chocolate and cherry, he’d carved a hippo poking out of a swamp, mouth wide open, with little birdies on his back and floating flowers. He’d taken extra care to ensure the smallest details were accurate, knowing the girl was an expert who’d notice if he missed a single tooth, and the effort had paid off in Tyler’s books. He thought it looked frickin awesome. Now all that was left was to surprise her with it. 

“Here you go Dad, all done, thanks,” Charlie returned to the breakfast table where they’d feasted on her favourite, pancakes, after FaceTiming the other side of her family in the next room, giving Josh his phone back. 

“No worries Birthday Girl, how’s Momma and the boys?”  
“Really good! I showed her the decorations a little bit and she really likes them, just like me! She also said the baby is kicking so so much today and maybe he wants to be born 2 weeks early so we can have the same birthday!”  
“Aww that would be cool,”  
“Yeah! And Oscar sent me kisses through the camera and got slobber everywhere,” she chuckled. 

Debby and her long term partner Liam had their first child together, Oscar, a little over 2 years ago, and were now expecting their second in a matter of weeks. With Josh and Tyler also choosing to adopt, Charlotte was ecstatic with how many siblings and parents and extended family members she suddenly had after so many years alone out in Chicago. She loved belonging to a big family, and she had no idea that they were all coming to visit imminently. 

“And Mommy’s okay?” Josh stroked her hair out of her face.   
“Mommy’s okay, she says she’s super excited to see me and not to be late when you take me to hers tonight, but she says to have fun with you and Ty first,”   
“We’re never late, are we, hey princess? Every weekend you’re with us, I get you back at 6 on the dot and today is no exception, we’ll make sure you’re home in time for birthday dinner with them, don’t worry,”  
“Okay, but, but that’s not my only home Dad, this is my home as well,”  
“Yes it is my gorgeous girl,” Josh’s grin went half way up his face. 

“Now you’re 10 and Mommy and Liam are having their new baby boy, do you remember the new way we’re going to share time?” Tyler asked her.   
“Yeh! Yeh now I get dinner here on Thursdays too, right? Not just Wednesdays,”  
“That’s right angel, Wednesdays and Thursdays I’ll pick you up from school and you’ll come hang out with me in the shop for a little bit, you can be my chief taste tester and fondant roller, and then when Dad finishes school or placements, we’ll go home and have dinner together and play some games or whatever you’d like before popping you back to Mom’s for bedtime,”  
“Can we still do board game night on Wednesday??” She asked hopefully.   
“Sweetheart it’s the highlight of my week, board game night is here to stay,” Tyler honestly smiled. 

“When I’m 11 will I get another extra time here? And another when I’m 12? And 13? And then when I’m like 16 I’ll be here every single day!!”  
“Charlotte baby you’re welcome here whenever you like, we’ve just gotta make sure you get lots of time with Momma and Liam and your brothers too, and you know Mom lives really close to school so you don’t have to get the bus super early. If you start sleeping here on school nights then you’ll have to wake up an hour earlier!”  
“I don’t mind! I wanna hang out with you and Ty! You, Ty, and the baby!!”   
“That’s very sweet poppet, but just you wait till I’m waking you up before the sun starts shining, then you might be thinking differently,” Josh laughed. 

“When I go to middle school or high school, am I closer to this house then??”   
“Uhhh, middle school is a little bit closer, but yeah absolutely, the high school you’ll probably go to is only about 10 minutes from here so you’re way closer,”   
“So does that mean I can live here when I go to high school??”  
“Sweetheart if that’s what you want, I promise Ty and I will talk to Mom and Liam about rejigging the routine, but you’ve only been 10 years old for a few hours so you’ve still got a bit of a wait until high school,”  
“Actually Mom said I was born at 11.17am so actually technically I’m still 9!”  
“I thought it was birthDAY, not birthMINUTE?” Tyler jokingly raised his eyebrows.   
“Yeh, should we cancel all your birthday plans? Pack everything up until 11.17??”  
“Nooo!!!!!! No no no! And what exactly are we doing today Daddy and Ty??”  
“It’s a surprise.”

“I see two cars pulling up!!! Wait, wait, no look Ty, there’s another one, that’s 3 cars! Are they for me?” Charlotte was bouncing from foot to foot with excitement as she watched out the front window. “OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH TY IT’S ELLIE!! AHHHHH!”

She spotted her cousin climbing out of the first taxi and immediately screamed. 

“Whatcha waiting for girl? Get out there! Careful with Granny Laura but go say hi to everyone else, they’re all here for you,” Tyler opened the front door for her and she ran straight down the drive barefoot to hug Ellie. 

The whole gang had arrived, Josephs and Duns alike. Some had flown in the night before, a few arriving earlier that morning, and Josh and Tyler had paid for the whole trip, including putting them up in the nicest hotel in the nearby area. Chicago wasn’t that far from Columbus but it was rare they came across in such numbers, and Tyler found himself grinning with the same delight as his daughter as they saw their family for the first time in a while. 

“Hello hello stranger!” Zack was carrying a massive hamper no doubt filled with treats his wife, Tatum, had brought all the way from home, but he still managed to reach an arm around and squeeze him tight.   
“Gah it’s so good to see you, come in, everyone, come in come in, Josh is just inside - lemme take this Mom,” Tyler made a pass for the bag crammed with wrapped gifts that she was holding.   
“I’m not that old and decrepit quite yet, I got it,” she laughed him off. 

All 6 kids ran ahead, laughing and giggling already, and the adults weren’t far behind them, taking the time to strip off their coats and shoes in the entrance hall. 

“Wow Ty, look at all of this,” Ashley gasped at all the decorations on the walls. “Look Momma, they made the place so pretty,”  
“Paper walls,” Laura, Josh’s mother, reached out to touch the streamers and Tyler stood by her, close to her, protective of her and ensuring she didn’t get swept up in the swarm. Her husband was doing the same, and the pair shared a warm smile with one another. 

“Why, w-why do you have paper walls?”  
“It’s Charlotte’s tenth birthday today and we wanted to help her celebrate and feel special so we had the house decorated. She really likes hippos, they’re her favourite animal, so we went with a hippo-ish theme and all these colours are to make it feel like a celebration. It makes Charlie happy, and that’s what we’re aiming for,” he explained to her softly.   
“Charlotte, Charlotte likes hippos Bill,” she turned to tell Josh’s father.   
“That’s right love, and that’s why we got her the silver hippo necklace,”  
“Oh,”   
“She’ll love it, Laura,” Tyler smiled patiently. 

“Oh heck, has our house been invaded??” Josh emerged to greet the band of adults, all the children already following the birthday girl off to some other distant room in the house. 

There were a flurry of hellos and greetings and the group followed his husband’s lead through to the main room they were going to be hosting in. 

Josh had been setting everything up whilst Tyler distracted Charlie, meaning he’d assembled tables and covered them in a spread of food from the caterers, plus the cake Tyler had created, and immediately he started receiving praise. 

“That one of your bad boys?” Jay, his youngest brother, asked.   
“Yessir,”  
“It’s amazing Ty,” Abbie told him.   
“I’m taking at least half the credit, I mean, carving cake is just another form of sculpture, no? So I’m absolutely taking credit for those skills, it’s in the genes I passed to him,” his mom claimed and most of them laughed. “It’s beautiful Ty, does she love it?”  
“She’s not seen it yet, fingers crossed,”

“Speaking of which, where did all my kiddies go?” Ashley looked around for her daughter and twin boys.   
“We got Charlotte a karaoke kit for her bday and, as adorable as she is, we opted to set it up in the other living room to protect our eardrums. She’s probably gone to show ‘em,” Josh reassured her. “We can go round them up if you’d like?”  
“Spoken like a father of 1! If they’re happy, leave them to be happy, don’t go fixing what ain’t broke Joshie,”   
“Father of 1 for not too much longer, Ty and I are officially half way through our adoption homestudy,” he grinned and so did Tyler, wrapping his arm around Josh’s waist. 

“Congratulations, any word of potential placements or matches yet?” Tyler’s dad asked, and Tyler noticed Josh’s dad discretely take Laura over to one of the tables to look at food, so she didn’t have to be bombarded with child focused chit chat and they could talk freely. 

“We’re in the middle of filling out our booklet for potential birth parents to read, so we’ve done our autobiography section where we wrote more about us as people and our relationship and our little family, and then we’ve both penned a personal essay about what bringing a second child into our home would mean to us, and done a fun quick fire Q&A about our likes and dislikes and stuff so they can see our fun side, and we’ve put in a bunch of photos so they can get a better sense of who we are, and written a diary style week in the life of the Dun-Josephs, and all that’s left is to write a letter directly addressing the birth parent, to say thank you for the sacrifice they’re making and to promise them we’ll take good care of their little one and give them the life they couldn’t, and uh, yeah, and every time we sit down to do it, we end up in tears, soooo,” 

“Funnel the emotion boys, cram that emotion into every word, don’t shy away because it’s hard, take the difficulty of the challenge and rise to it because then the birth parent is gonna fall in love with you two, just as the rest of the world has,” Mom told them and Josh kissed Tyler’s temple. 

“Mom, if you wanna take partial credit for his cake sculpting then that’s one thing, but giving Tyler writing advice?? The only man in the room with a published novel? That’s certainly something,” Jay called her out and everyone laughed. 

Tyler wrote his debut semi-autobiographical fiction, Closeted, about a gay man trapped in a lie. For months he kept the pages close to his chest, nervous even to show Josh, but after a year of sheltering it from the public eye, Tyler came to the realisation that maybe, just maybe, the words might help someone in the same position as his lead character, and so he submitted to a dozen publishers, expecting no responses, only to be blown away with 11 offers. 

He’d taken the one he decided was the best, not the highest paying but instead the one that organised for him to do a small book tour, speaking at LGBT centres and community halls to people who could relate to the internalised homophobia he’d written about, and the experience had been life changing. It was difficult, leaving Josh and Charlie behind for 3 weeks as he travelled, but the people he met and the tales he’d heard in those rooms had touched him beyond belief, and he didn’t regret a thing.

The publishers had offered him an advance on a follow up, but he’d declined. Maybe some day he’d write something else, a story of hope perhaps, but for now he was invested in being present in his growing family. 

“Kiddo, Momma’s wondering whether we can grab one of these mini smoked salmon tartlet thingies?” Bill asked.   
“Sure! Yeah everyone, tuck in, the food’s not part of the decoration, it’s here for eating so please do help yourselves. Sit wherever, there’s drinks here and in the fridge in the other room, Ashley, all the vegan stuff is on the light blue plates, oh and the pakoras are quite spicy so everyone bare that in mind,” Josh told the group and they split off. 

  
“How’s school at the moment Josh? I remember you saying you had some issues with your placement?” Tyler’s mom called them up every week so she was pretty well updated, but after so many years with Tyler being so emotionally distant from her, she now liked to compensate by knowing every detail of their lives in Chicago, and honestly it was incredibly heartwarming. Tyler loved having a strong bond with his mom again. 

“Yeah, I already declared that I’m specialising in child nursing and for some reason I was allocated a care home for the elderly, and on top of that it was basically the other side of Chicago and would have meant a two hour commute each way thanks to rush hour, so I would have missed Charlotte’s Wednesday visits to be doing something I’m not especially interested in. I spoke to the coordinator though and they said it was an error, I’ve been swapped to working in the NICU at the closest hospital to here which is exactly what I wanted, so yeah, it’s all worked out in the end,”  
“Aww I’m glad poppet, when does that start?”  
“Week on Monday, I’m so excited,”

“You think NICU might be the one for you long term, right?” Tyler squeezed his husband’s thigh.   
“Yeah, hopefully. I really enjoyed the general ward from my last placement, but all the theory we’ve been doing on premature babies has been so engaging and interesting, and I dunno, something about being surrounded by babies, being involved in all the baby’s firsts and watching their relationship with their parents grow, it would be so special,”  
“My boys were in the NICU for 3 days when they were born, they were healthy just a little early which is pretty typical for twins, and all the nursing staff were incredible,” Ashley added. 

“I don’t think I could do it, be surrounded by sick babies every day. Of course you’ll be involved in some miracles, but not every child will make it and it would be too taxing on me emotionally to be submerged in the anxiety and grief,” Kelly sighed.   
“That’s the same with so many nursing roles though, every ward has their risk and working with children can accentuate the emotions, but for me I think the reward of working on a more acute specialty is worth it.” Josh responded thoughtfully. 

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the one to advocate avoiding emotional situations Mom, aren’t you usually all up for participating in the richness of the human experience?” Tyler asked her.   
“Oh absolutely I am, we should strive to feel as much as we can, the good and the bad, but my only concern is with protecting your mental health Josh. I know you’re incredibly empathic and soak up your surroundings like a sponge, which is a beautiful thing when you’re surrounded by joy suppliers, like your little girl, but I’d hate for it to work against you and cause you to bring home the stress of all those worried parents,”  
“That’s fair, I can understand that and I appreciate you being concerned for me, I absolutely don’t wanna be bringing that home with me. What I will say is I think there’s a lot to be learned from that kind of environment about the value of life, which could work in a positive way by giving me perspective, and as for the harder elements, I’m in a really good place right now, therapy is doing wonders, and the benefit of this being an 8 week placement is that if we learn I can’t cope, then when it comes to finding a permanent post, I’ll go for something else. It’s like a taster,”

“I trust you, Josh. I trust you to make the right decisions for yourself, and if you feel able to take on the massive pressure of working in baby intensive care then I bow down to your strengths. You’re really rather impressive either way, young man,”  
“Thank you, Kel,” 

“You’ve come a really long way. I remember when you couldn’t even answer the phone without having a panic attack, and now you’re training to be a hero,” Ashley, Josh’s sister, reflected proudly.   
“Without Ty I’d still be making beds and delivering pizzas,”  
“Without you I’d be nothing but a suit,” Tyler kissed his husband’s cheek and cuddled up against him.   
“You deserve each other, truly you do,”

“Josh, where can I take Momma? She’s getting a bit tired,” Bill came over quickly, suggesting urgency.   
“Take any of the spare bedrooms on the top floor, or I can call you guys a cab back to the hotel? I could drive you back myself if you’d prefer?”  
“Um,”  
“I’ll take her upstairs Dad, see if that’s enough to settle her, if not then the hotel it is,” Ashley stood up, looking over to her mom who was stood with Jordan calming her down.   
“Yeah I’ll take her up too, Dad you stay down here, talk to people, relax. You’ve been with Mom the entire day, sit and chat, and Ash and I will look after her,”  
“You sure?”  
“I’m sure, sit,” Josh insisted on swapping places and begrudgingly Bill obeyed, so the two siblings could usher their mom out of the room. 

“She’s done really well to even be here.” Bill started with defending her. “It’s hard some days to get her out of the house, out of bed even, so to have her in a different state, with her 4 kids and 4 grandkids, plus your 2 grandkids Kelly, it’s a lot to ask of her. She’s done all that she can but now she needs to rest.”  
“We’re all really impressed, and Charlotte has an understanding of how hard she’s had to work to get here, so she really appreciates you making the effort. It means a lot to her and to all of us,” Tyler smiled at him. 

“Tell Ty about Laura’s art therapy Bill, I was hearing all about it over breakfast at the hotel, she was very chatty,” Tyler’s mom prompted him.   
“Oh yes, well she knows you’re an artist so she figured you’d be interested,”  
“And right she was, I absolutely loved hearing all about it, I’ve always known the healing properties of art, but seeing it transform her before my eyes was breathtaking, she came alive when she was talking about it,” Kelly beamed. 

“She’s been going to these art group therapy sessions by herself recently, it’s been blowing my mind. We’ve been going together for about 18 months, but she’s now done 4 sessions with the group by herself with me sat out in the car,”  
“That’s amazing, good for her,” Tyler was proud of his mother in law.   
“Yeah really good for her, amazing for her, and pretty nice for me too, getting a little time to myself. I’ve been sat there rereading your book actually Ty, on my fourth read currently and I still cry every time,”   
“Oh, Bill,”

“I’m serious kid, there was this lady on the plane, did you already tell him this Kelly?”  
“Nope,”  
“There was this lady a few rows in front of us and I spotted she was reading your book when I went up to the bathroom, and I couldn’t help myself, I had to speak to her on my way back and boast that my son-in-law wrote it. She was just as excited as I was and she’d only got to that chapter about riding the bus and I warned her that it only got more emotional from there and she told me how she’d already cried twice and she’s reading it because her nephew just came out as gay, well, well not gay, gah, what was the word, not bi but like bi, uh,”  
“Pansexual?” Tyler offered.  
“Yes! Pansexual, but he’s dating another boy which came as a real shock to the whole family who don’t really know anything about the community, and so google recommended your book to her, and she said to say thank you for helping her understand,”  
“I still don’t know how to respond when people say stuff like that,” he chuckled, playing with his wedding ring.

“Why are you so uncomfortable with praise?”  
“Mom!”  
“I’m serious honeybun, you’ve done a beautiful thing by sharing a piece of yourself with the world, and in return people want to show their appreciation. Nothing about that should be making you uneasy, so why are you uncomfortable?”  
“I didn’t think my daughter’s tenth birthday party was gonna end up in a therapy session,”  
“Okay okay, hint taken, I’m just trying to tell you that it’s okay to be proud of yourself Ty,”

“I wrote a whole book about learning to be proud of myself,”  
“It’s a lifelong journey though. You’re not a finished product, none of us are, we’re all continually growing and it’s healthy to acknowledge areas that need attention, like me personally, I know I need to get better at inviting people into my creative space, Bill needs to get better at taking time for himself, and you need to get better at accepting compliments. That means not only finding the right thing to say in response, but also accepting their words as their truth and understanding that you’re making a difference in people’s lives. You’re changing things for the better, so you’re allowed to be prouder of yourself than this, baby.”  
“I’m already proud of myself, genuinely I am, but I guess you’re right, I, I could probably do with working on being even prouder.”

“Just know that everyone in this room is in awe of how far you’ve come Tyler. I know I’ll never be able to find the words to truly express to you how I’m feeling, but having you in our lives has changed everything. You’ve transformed Josh into the happy hopeful man I always knew he had the potential to be, and in doing so, you’ve given Charlotte the dad she always deserved, you’ve taken away unmeasurable amounts of concern about them off the Dun family’s shoulders, you’ve helped alleviate some of the anxiety my wife battles, which has meant our relationship had improved too, and because we’re more relaxed, we can spend more time with our other children and our grandchildren, and it goes on and on like that, reaching more and more people. What you might see as an isolated occurrence, your journey of self acceptance, has actually caused ripples that have changed the tides of our family, so I want to say thank you, and yes, kid, you should be proud of yourself.” Bill reached out to touch his knee fondly, but Tyler scooter closer and hugged his father in law tight. 

“..happy birthday dear Charlotte, happy birthday to you!” The room serenaded the girl, to her delight, and then she blew out the 10 candles atop her hippo cake, with everyone cheering and clapping. 

“What did you wish for??” Ellie, Ashley’s oldest daughter, asked.   
“It’s a secret!” Charlie declared with a giggle, “Ty, Ty, can you cut the cake and let me have a hippo tooth please?”  
“Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear,” Jordan chuckled from behind.  
“One hippo tooth coming right up princess,”

Tyler tried not to be too much of a snob in his new life, but one area he was particularly particular about was his cakes, only wanting the best for his creations, right down to how they were cut. Too many people dredged up crumbs with serrated blades or thick chef’s knives, when really the best way in his vast experience was to use a thin sharp slicing knife, gently heated with a hot water. 

Of course Josh knew that, and had his favourite knife ready for him. 

“How’s that for a slice? Or bigger?”  
“Bigger bigger bigger!”  
“Yes ma’am,” he moved the knife further across, hoping his little girl always had such a positive attitude towards food, and then transferred the piece onto the hippo paper plate, not forgetting to pull off a tooth he’d made from modelling chocolate.   
“Thanks Ty,” she went up on her tippy toes to kiss him on the cheek as she took her plate. 

“Can I have a big piece too please Uncle TyTy?” Amelia, Maddy and Will’s daughter, asked nicely.   
“Absolutely darling, who else wants a big piece?” He asked the room and counted all the hands, “and smaller pieces?” He again counted up, then started dishing up onto plates, cutting smoothly into the swamp, occasionally giving random people a flower but not touching the main hippo just yet, knowing Charlie would get a buzz out of eating the animal herself over the next few days when she took the cake with her to Debby’s. 

“Has everyone who wants a piece got a piece?” He checked once he thought he’d done enough.   
“This is to die for Tyler, I’ll be getting plenty more before we head off, just you wait,” Maddy had already demolished half her portion.   
“Can I grab a slice to take when I check on Lau in a minute?” Bill asked, his wife calming down to the extent that she’d actually fallen asleep in the guest room.   
“Sure thing, I’ll leave it just here for you,” he prepared his mother in law a slice and set it aside.   
“Thanks champ,”

“Ty, can I talk to you in the kitchen please?” Josh came over to say discretely, immediately setting off alarm bells.   
“Of course.” He put the knife safely out of reach of small hands and followed his husband across the hall to the other room. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing, I’ve just been wanting to do this all day,” Josh grabbed him by his belt and thrust their hips together, their lips finding each other with no hesitation. “Watching you work a room has been driving me crazy, I just want you all to myself for a moment,”  
“I ain’t complaining,” Tyler wrapped his arms around Josh’s neck and pulled him back closer, kissing him again. 

Knowing their entire family was next door made it feel like they were being naughty, avoiding their guests to indulge in one another, and honestly the thrill made it all the better. 

“I love you so much,”  
“I love you more,” Josh insisted, sliding a hand to Tyler’s chest, fingers curling into his shirt playfully. “I’m so lucky you’re mine,”  
“Luck’s got nothing to do with it, it’s those devilish good looks of yours that got this piece of ass to Chicago,”   
“Which piece of ass would that be? This piece of ass?” His wandering fingers found their way to Tyler’s buttcheeks, squeezing.   
“Bingo,”

“I’m so happy Ty,” Josh pressed their foreheads together with a satisfied sigh. “I’m just so frickin happy,”  
“I’m happy you’re happy darlin, that’s all I want from life, a happy healthy family with you at the centre,”   
“It feels like I’m in a drea-“ he was cut off by his phone ringing. “Crap, sorry,”  
“S’okay,” Tyler loosened his grip.   
“It’s Liam,”  
“What the heck does he want? We’ve got another hour till she’s due back,” Tyler didn’t like Charlotte’s other stepdad, he was unnecessarily harsh and took any and every opportunity to be a dick to Josh, and he didn’t understand how his husband could be so patient with him. 

“Liam, what’s up?” 

Tyler stood there, playing with Josh’s belt loops whilst he answered the phone. 

“Right, oh wow, uh huh, yeah that’s absolutely fine, yeah, oh okay yeah we can do that, well we’ve got all the big beds in the spare rooms and a cot still in its box in the nursery that we could start putting up, yeah, alright yeah that works, course. What time should we expect you? Wonderful, alright Liam, pass on my love and luck to Debby, see you soon, bye, yep, bye,” 

“News?”  
“Debby’s gone into labour, they’re about to head to the hospital and the plan was for his parents to watch Oscar and Charlotte, but since this is happening 2 weeks early, his parents are out of town so he’s asking if we can look after the kids for a day or two. I said that’s absolutely fine so they’re swinging by quickly on route to drop Oscar off, should be here in about 20 minutes - that’s alright isn’t it?”   
“Extra time with Charlotte and bonus time with little man? Absolutely fine, you wanna go tell Charlie the baby’s coming or should I?”  
“Together?” Josh took his hand.   
“Together,”

Tyler didn’t know Oscar, he didn’t even really fully know how they were related, he was his stepdaughter’s half brother, which probably made him Tyler’s relative somehow, he just didn’t know the term for it. Oscar was an important part of Charlotte’s life, so he was important to Tyler by default, and at the end of the day, he was a little boy who needed someone to look after him whilst his parents were in the hospital and Tyler was more than willing to step up to the plate. 

Their adoption plan was for a newborn baby up to the age of 31 days. Whilst plenty of time was devoted to considering the decision, knowing how many older children were waiting in the system for the chance to be taken in by a family, the couple decided for their first child together they wanted to experience as much of their life alongside them as possible. Maybe when it came to a second adoption they’d be better equipped and prepared for an older child and the complexity that may bring, but for now they were prepared for a little baby. 

All the reading they’d done, all the questions they’d asked, all the training courses they’d attended had been about little babies, and having a flustered confused 2 year old in their house was quite a leap. He’d been swept up in the chaos of his mom going into labour, then been dropped off at a house he’d never been to, filled with people he didn’t know, with two men he only recognised from picking Charlotte up every few days trying to comfort him, and he was understandably overwhelmed. 

All the party guests finished their cake and their conversations, then took their cue to order the taxis back to the hotel. Some had work and school to be hurrying back to Ohio for, but a few were staying a couple of days so would get to see them again, including Laura and Bill. Everyone said their goodbyes and wished their final happy birthdays, and then the house fell quiet except for Oscar’s crying. 

That’s when Charlotte truly came alive. Tyler saw his daughter melt into a role he’d never seen her in before, and watched as she became a doting big sister. She gathered a few toys, including a stuffed hippo she’d only been gifted a few hour prior, and tried to distract him, playing made up games with them. When he pushed everything away, still crying, instead she tried hugging him and talking to him gently, and it was utterly adorable. 

She was going to make a great big sister to their future baby. 

“Ty?” She twisted round to face him.   
“Yeh angel?”  
“Os is getting sleepy but at home he only falls asleep when Liam carries him around-“  
“I not tired,”  
“Do you want TyTy to carry you around Os? Like Daddy does?” The birthday girl tried tempting him.   
“Charlie carry!” The toddler declared.   
“Charlie is super strong, but she’s not as strong as me. Even if you’re not tired, I think I’ll be able to carry you until you fall asleep. Would you like that?” Tyler shuffled closer, approaching slowly so not to spook the boy, who was still getting familiar with him. 

“I not tired,”  
“No, you’re not tired, but would you like a carry anyway?” He held his hands out slightly.   
“Yeh,” Oscar balled his fist up and rubbed his clearly exhausted eyes, then reached out so Tyler could scoop him up. 

The two year old collapsed against him, cuddling close, completely relaxed and loose, and Tyler couldn’t help smiling as he wrapped his arms around him and stood up, feeling his tired little breaths against his neck like little snores already. 

“That’s it, you’re okay, I’ve got you Os,” he whispered gently and started pacing the floors. 

Charlotte had been small when Tyler first met her, but never this small. As he held the two year old, bouncing a little with each careful step, he imagined just how small a newborn would feel in his arms, imagined that first moment he got to hold them, to bring them home, to look into their eyes and to love them. 

He couldn’t wait for a baby. 

For so many years he convinced himself he didn’t want to be a father, in fact he convinced himself that the only way to get through life was by never connecting to anyone, period, and whilst that had brought him money, it left him hollow. His life had boiled down to bits of paper and a figure in a bank, it meant nothing. Now his life was richer than his wildest imagination, and with adoption around the corner, it was only about to get better. 

“I think he’s asleep already!” Charlotte whispered when Tyler’s next lap took him back through the room she was in. 

Tyler dared to peek and saw she was right, the toddler had drifted off within a few minutes. He loved that she knew her little brother so well she could predict exactly when he was tired enough to be rocked off. 

“Oh yeh, yay!” He whispered as quietly as he possibly could, basically just mouthing the words. “Shall we go upstairs all together? Find Dad?”  
“Yeh!”

Their house was a new build so thankfully there were no creaky floorboards to worry about, and Tyler could carry the child upstairs with Charlotte following closely behind without disturbing him at all. 

They had 3 floors, but the master bedroom and Charlie’s bedroom and the newborn’s nursery were all on the middle. The top was reserved for guests and rooms they rarely needed, like a home office and a reading room and a room for doing yoga. They hoped that, as their family grew and grew, the older children could move upstairs and the extra rooms could be converted to their hangout spaces, but for now they liked to keep everyone close together on that middle level. 

“Hey,” Josh’s voice was a little loud, but judging from the way he cringed, it was clear he realised his mistake as he dropped the volume. “Good job guys, you got him sleeping,”  
“It was all Charlie,” Tyler told him and the girl smiled proudly. 

Whilst they’d been downstairs, Josh had been trying to figure out the sleeping arrangements. 

Usually Charlotte slept alone next door, and back at his house, Oscar had his own room too. It didn’t feel right to expect the 2 year old to manage in an unfamiliar room alone though, so initially they’d decided to simply put Oscar in Charlie’s small double bed with her, but then they remembered that it was raised significantly higher than the kiddy bed he had at home, and they got concerned that it wouldn’t be safe if he rolled out. Plus expecting Charlie to completely care for her brother seemed a big ask as well, especially when she was feeling anxious about her mom and new baby brother. 

The solution that Josh had seemingly come to was to take Charlotte’s mattress off her bed frame and carry it through to the large open space at the end of the men’s bed. He’d even transferred all her millions of pillows and stuffed animals and set up the bed exactly how she liked it, just in a different room and much closer to the carpet. That way Oscar could be close to the ground, he could be close his sister, and they could both be close to Josh and Tyler. 

“I thought it would be nice to all have a slumber party in here, hey gorgeous?” Josh ran his hand through Charlotte’s hair.   
“Yeah,” she cuddled up against his hip. 

Tyler checked on Oscar again and he was still fast asleep, soft little lips slightly open. He couldn’t resist the urge to nuzzle against the boy’s head, soaking in the precious moments. 

“Which side do you want to sleep on and which side is for Oscar?”  
“Ossy can have that side,” she pointed and so Josh peeled back the covers and Tyler crouched down then carefully and as fluidly as he could, laid the sleeping boy on the mattress. 

Momentarily Oscar seemed like he was going to wake up, but instead he sniffed and rolled over, and the other 3 could relax again. 

“You tired too darlin? You’ve had a busy day,” Josh asked quietly.   
“Um, maybe a little bit tired, but I don’t want to sleep yet, I want to see if Mommy and Liam send pictures of the baby,”  
“I got a text off Liam whilst you were playing with Oscar and he said Mommy’s seen a doctor and even though she’s started having the baby, it’s still not time to push yet, they’ve got to wait a little bit longer until there’s room for the head to come and she’s in something called active labour. It’s going to be at least a few more hours. I think maybe you should try and get some sleep, and if Mommy or Liam send us any updates, I promise I’ll wake you up.”  
“Pinky promise?”  
“Pinky promise,” Josh linked fingers with his daughter. 

“Can we go in your bed first and have a group cuddle together? All three of us?”   
“Absolutely birthday girl,” he picked her up and swung her onto the master bed, with Tyler going round to his side, sandwiching her in the middle. 

They had to hush so they didn’t wake Oscar, but the whispering was kinda fun - it genuinely did feel sort of like a slumber party with a mom who kept knocking on the wall for you to quiet down. 

“Did you have a nice birthday?” Tyler asked once they were all cuddled up close to each other.   
“The best,”  
“Today was your best birthday ever?”  
“Yeah! I, I love Mommy, I love Mommy and Liam and Ossy and the new baby, I love them lots and lots, but I love being here with you and with my Ohio family even better and I’ve never had a birthday with you before and I like having my birthday with you. Next year when I’m 11 can it be your turn again?”  
“I’m glad you’ve had a really good day sweetheart, that makes Dad happy, but we’ve got to do good sharing and make sure Mom gets to spend time with you on your special days too,” Josh told her. 

“Dad,”  
“Yes my love?”  
“Why, why do you always say we need to share with Mommy, when Mommy gets me every day and you are only getting me every other weekend and Wednesday? That’s not good sharing! That’s Mommy having more!”  
“Well, darling, a big reason is what we were saying earlier, about how long it takes to get to school from here,”  
“What are the other reasons though?”  
“Um, well, you know that when you were very little, I was quite poorly,” Josh decided to be honest with the 10 year old, and Tyler smiled on proudly. 

“I used to get really scared all the time, a little bit like how Granny Laura gets really scared, so scared I couldn’t breathe, and something I was scared of was being a bad daddy. Rather than being brave and trying, I stayed in Columbus and Mommy had to look after you all by herself, and that wasn’t fair on you or your mom. Then I met Tyler, and he helped me be really brave, and I went to the doctors and they helped me get some medicine, and I started talking to a lady called a therapist who helps people who feel scared, and all of that helped me be brave enough to try being a proper daddy to you, and that’s why Ty and I moved to be with you. So even though I don’t feel as scared any more, I still let Mommy have more of the week with you to say sorry to her for leaving her by herself with you as a baby, and also because I know that’s what you’ve always known. Living with Mommy is what’s normal for you, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to arrive and shake up your entire life. Does that make sense?”

“Why were you scared?” She asked innocently.   
“I have something called anxiety, which means my brain worries about lots of things too much, and I was extra worried about being a daddy because I know it’s the most important job in the world and I didn’t want to do it wrong.”   
“You didn’t do it wrong, you’re the best daddy in the world. Both of you are the best daddies in the world,”

Tyler knew how significant that was for Josh, he could see it in his husband’s face, but he hadn’t expected it to hit so hard for himself. Suddenly he felt like crying. Instead he snuggled closer. 

“Can I tell you a secret? Earlier for my birthday wish, I wished Mommy’s baby would come. Do you think I’m magic?”  
“I think you must be, missy,”  
“Okay then what are your three wishes and I’ll grant them! I’m your fairy godmother!”  
“Sweetheart, all my wishes already came true.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta dah! Please please let me know what you think :D
> 
> I’ve really enjoyed writing this and hearing some feedback would be amazing. I have seen a couple of people asking for a sequel already or expressing upset about how soon this is ending, and honestly I kinda agree? 
> 
> This felt like the natural place to stop, but I did put a great deal of effort into developing these characters and I’ve grown to really like them, so I have been exploring the potential for a follow up. 
> 
> I did a rough plan and wrote the first chapter and boooyyy, I accidentally made it incredibly angsty.... like super angst, soooo... should I change it? Try making it fluffier? Lean into the angst? Idk... I’m gonna keep playing around with it but at the same time I’m not sure whether you guys would prefer I just left them alone? 
> 
> So yeah, no promises or anything but there is potential for this to continue, based on your reactions and how healthy I am in the near future. Make sure to subscribe to my user so you will get notified if I post a sequel, but again no promises and even if does go ahead, it will take a while, patience and understanding please!
> 
> Thanks guys,  
> Maisie x


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